Saturday, April 11, 2009

Biting the dust

"Shut up" I cried on top of my voice, which was barely heard by the person half feet to my left. All sorts of things were happening around me. Eight big sized pioneer speakers amplifying everything a man in a guitar, a man with a couple of sticks and a big fat man with cruel voice were doing. Showing no mercy whatsoever. The big fat man was accompanied by another fat man and a fat lady to shout along with him. I saw big focus lights, glittering stage, mouth-watering girls, guys with water-in-mouth after them, and elder people all around with big fat parcels in hand. The focus lights increased the temperature of the room to abnormal proportions that I wanted to rip my shirt off and use it to tie the mouth of the big fat guy with the mike. A big queue, starting from the stage, gathered as I was waiting impatiently, like a cat waiting for its milk, with that big parcel five hundred meters from the head of the queue.

So, what is the fuss all about? If you haven’t guessed it yet, its just that my friend was getting married.

"What?" my friend shouted from within four millimetres of the ear drum. The word went in for a total internal reflection within my brain for a few seconds. I wanted to say "Shut up" again but decided not to. And so I decided to shut up!

After an hour of creeping like a snail, I reached where I wanted to reach. Not the dining area, but the reception stage.

"Congratulations" I said and gently shook her hands "You have made the right choice by marrying my friend"

"Ah!.. well.." she said with her eyebrow raised. "I don’t know about that, but this guy is after cricket all the time. You are the one who always play with him. Don’t you?"

I was taken aback for a moment. "Can you advise him?" she continued.

I swallowed, blinked and lowered my shoulders and said "Yes, I will" in a low tone and looked at Vijay, who looked as apologetic as a prisoner who was about to be hanged.

She collected the parcel from my hand and gently smiled at me. Then she moved her eyeballs towards Vijay signalling me to convey her message to him. I walked past her, and gently hugged Vijay.

"All the best Vijay" I whispered in his ears "Both for your marriage and for your life thereafter. See you after sixty years"

"Hey, come tomorrow for my marriage" he said half looking at me and half looking at another set of people with full of fake smile for the cameras. He was heading towards his death-trap!

It was half three in the morning when I found Vijay with nine tenth of his eyes closed sitting in front of fire, waiting to get married and go to bed...err..for some rest. Deprived of sleep, deprived of electric fan, and soon to be deprived of freedom, he sat there sweating all over his body. A small piece of dirt resulting from the fire rose up in the air. It went high, started descending right over his head and gently came down and settled on his lower lips and chin, and stuck there due to excessive sweating.

"Another one bites the dust. Even in literal sense" I thought.

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