Mobile ringed. I recevied the call. voice from other side said "Nishant is tieing knots for life and have hosted Bachelor's party on coming saturday. Meet in Rasayani, by 1800 hrs". Receiver hooked. Me lost into memories of school days.
Day arrived. Saturday. Weekly off at office. As I was asked to reach by 1800hrs. I planned my day accordingly. Completed reading a book, "The Kiterunner", watched a hindi movie "Wake Up Sid"(only name is english), Pressed my clothes (ya, i do it at home), had a bath. Left home, letting mom know that i would be staying at friend's home. While walking through road I was memorizing of all school friends. We were meeting after many years. Lost in thought i suddenly realized that I have reached stand. Six seater stand. a vehicle which is similar to public transport, but for short distance. Local people term this vehicle as "Tum Tum".(Its not like TomTom which you see in London Cabs). It can drive six people and its fares are regulated by government authority. And see my luck, six seater's drivers union were on strike. The only option left, to reach Rasayani was State Transport buses. I was not the only person suffering from this. Other commuters too were left stranded and waiting for bus.
Bus stand, a very unhygenic place. Always crowded. You will find all type of people. On every entrance of a bus, few people run along with the bus. Bus would also feel proud about this scene. It was like a superstars entering the hall and fans following him. For various destination various platform were assigned. And single platform was assigned to different destinations. So whenever a bus alights at the platform, the crowd use to run and stand in front of bus looking at its face. I think none of them would have ever seen their spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend so attentively, but then they were looking at the bus. The reason for looking at the bus in this fashion was, a rectangular plate which is placed on the window of passenger seat, informed the destinated stop. Finally the bus which i want to ply reached and as expected crowd was trying to get into it. Seeing the crowd I dropped the plan, but then decided to go. How can i miss the party hosted by my friend who is with me right from kindergarten.
"Common get inside" was common shout from the people who were trying to get into the bus. Somehow I got into the bus. Bus has only one entrance, on left side, behind the driver seat. Its a single door which is hinged to bus. It always open in outward direction. Entrance through the door is big enough for a single person to pass through it. Adjacent to door is a seat assigned for the conductor. Conductor is a person who issues a ticket. Bus was pack, it was like you are stuffing your clothes in a bag. It is not that i am not used to. If you once travel in Mumbai local trains in peak hours I believe you can travel in any mode of transport in this world. But then bus was too much. Somehow i got place to keep my feet on bus platform. I mean for rest of the time my feet was resting on someone else feet or the bags. I was standing in very crumpy pattern. I was feeling as if i am in greece and michelengo has ask me to give a pose as he has to make a sculpture. Normally the travel time is of half hour. But as bus was pack with people, the in and out of people took lot of time due to which travel time atleast for me ended after one hour fifteen minutes. I really prayed to god for rest of passengers and their journey, which was for next one hour. Being in country like India people have humanity and it passes from generation to generation. Once bus started moving few young generation people, or you can say college studs demanded male passengers, who were seated, to swap their seat with females and senior citizen who were standing. I think they were regular travelers and they know how to make adjustments. Slowly they were making each person to do it. Suddenly one person denied to do so and to my suprise all the studs in one voice shouted at him. The suprising fact was all the studs were from different college, live at different place but raised their voices for a common reason. I think that's what India is unity in diversity.
While walking down those streets, the streets we use to walk toghether, go to school, learnt cycle, motorcycles too. and so reached the friends house. He was there to welcome all the guests. I hugged him and wished hearty congratulations. Party was huge then expected. I mean i was expecting only bachelors, but he was throwing big party for all the members in the society. I asked him where will we find place to enjoy our party i.e. Drinks. He said he has arranged a room for that and have assigned Manjeet to arrange that. Manjeet our school friend. By the time I met Nishant's mom and dad, and was waiting for rest of the friends to arrive. Manjeet, our school friend. He was eldest student in our class. He had inborn management skills or being elder he was forced to do that, no idea. But end of the day he had management skills.
It was going to be suprise for me because even i didn't know who all were going to make for this day. By the time all the society member gathered down. Many of them know me from childhood. I was not even able to recognize them. May be because i am meeting them after many years. then arrived band of musical instrument player. Its a common for all marriages where we have this kind of procession. In local slang it's termed as "banjowala". He have set of people who carry their own drums. Drums are of different size due to which they produce different music. One keyboard player, who decides the tune. People are crazy fir such kind of music. The people here dance like crazy. They dance a free-style(i don't know if its a proper term), but i call it that because i think it's real free style. You can't compare it with jazz, pop, hip-hop, break, classical or any type of dance which exists on this living world. the music originated from those instrument is some kind of steriods for this people. They get the energy and they dance. They dance, they dance wild, they dance like crazy and they can dance in this pattern for long hours. They forget everyhting, their family, their tension, their time, for what purpose are they dancing. They only process which works is music as input and movement of body. World becomes that small. In such event females too are equally involved. Once the music stops, you find all the people sweating and tired. At this point they realize that they had really danced for long time. This is one event of wedding ceremony. And the number of the events keep on varying and it goes from one day to seven days.
