It’s 7 PM Thursday, still got a mail from Ravi to our group list. Ah! for a moment relieved to see I am not a only one still at office. Rushed to Home & then rushed to Railway station packing a wrong shoe pair by 8:25 PM, thinking the train leaves at 8:30 PM. You know what our Mr.Organiser Jagga always gives 1/2 an hour early deadline to real deadline. The first thing to see there was who all had what all sizes of luggages and the second thing was to take these baggages to settle them in a single compartment. Out of S4, S6, S7 I felt some compartment was labeled as “couples only” like in some pubs & discos . We, hungry chaps were desperately waiting for the Mysore station, why! A delicious food was awaiting us for our ambush – Courtesy Karishma or Ravi oh! I am confused.
Early morning Mangalore welcomed us with its thick green canopy drenched in a heavy rain. The weather there was so much similar to the characteristic of that of a girl; so volatile, so unpredictable, swinging to the extremes in matter of seconds. Rowen had done all the arrangement of the room and thanks to Mangalore buns too. It was looking really cool, home like feeling, the short walk from railway station Kankanadi to Samrudhi lodge in a drizzling rain was quite tranquilizing. Thank God it was Friday, so we decided to get freshen up by 10:30 and start exploring gloomy Mangalore. By the way Nishant had already arrived with his special friend Sarika. Ah! it is big group now 17+2 in number. After having a breakfast we went to Someshawara Beach. To our surprise the beach was not all that romantic & quiet, it was roaring with high tides, gushing with force on rock & little bit left out shore. Our Professional Photographer Mr. Pari took some amazing shots & trying out some experiments on the timing of waves hitting the rock and goggles. We spent almost an hour on the rock witnessing the power of nature just to realize how insignificant we stand infront of it. Anyway the best part was we were on a trip after a long time in a group of this size, meeting some of my class-mates nearly after 6 years (Kishore), recalling old memories about our college, checkpost, canteen, dialogues, giggling around with jokes and events that happened in the past. Now along with it we were adding to our memories like all standing & showing our back to camera, witnessing sweet quarrels of the newly wedded friends, chips, smelly bhel on that paper cone, walking & travelling in the bus, chit chat. Somehow we had identified Ideal Ice-cream parlour as our hang-out place. Food for lunch was substituted by ice-creams, cutlets & samosas. The day ended with dinner in Dolphins & poker game.
July 11th 2009, Saturday – A big day for Rowen & Zita. We all got up and dressed up with suits & marriage attires and had a bunch of photo sessions(I think Vogue or Maxim can sponsor us for such events). We the great timekeepers entered the church late. Rowen & Zita were already at the centre and the ceremony had begun. The whole set up was so extravagant & grand, we could feel delight of it everywhere. What impressed me the most was solemn ritualistic addressing by Fathers of the Church. Although some part of it was in Konkani, with a bit of Marathi background some meaning could be made out of it. The whole marriage stands on the foundation of love, faith, trust, mutual respect. Some of verses made so much of sense like the one standing together in health and sickness, abiding by love, forgiveness, living in harmony, honouring eachother to live together for eternity, pervading peace, instilling love in hearts of not only the newly marrying couple but also people present in the hall. Chalo yaar funde se fun part par ab mudenge. There was a orchestra, a lovely decorated podium, a 3 level cake and a enthusiastic anchor. Everything was so organized say it a toast, or couple walk, or dance, or speech by Rowen(Did you win first prize in speech competition when you were in school), food, best man & maid of honor dance (Ajay good job man! ). The evening party was so much fun and was very casual in nature. Man! everybody in Rowen’s or Zita’s family are talented. Almost everyone are good singers, guitarist, dancers, musician in one way or the other. Our Best Man turned out to a Bar Man (Ajay! got so well mingled with us, I am getting a feeling that we studied engineering together). There were so many games too. We also started with song antaskari and dance. I was amazed by the incredible energy of Grandma(I feel old at this age), Rowen’s Dad, brother for that matter everyone there.
We didn’t want the party to end, so with that influence we continued our party at Room 315. We made two group on-bed & off-bed and played a hour long antaskhari. So many songs kept on playing, playing, it was 94.3 non-stop hits. Then the most interesting game started, the dumb charadas. Everyone one us were pulled on to the test of acting skills. The most daring & amusing actor award goes to our Busa (MC). Man! it was so much fun. Damn it! didn’t wanted to end that either, but the clock was ticking 3:30 AM. So half the crowd left to take some rest after a long day. The other half continued with Poker. We were now playing with more and more coins and we got the hang of the game now after the initial orientation by Nishant. It was already morning 4 or 5AM.
Poker was not just over there, the gambling continued, along with it came up with so many imaginative ideas, “Why don’t we book a room and play poker, why don’t we meet everyday in Majestic to play. Even in the early morning 11 AM people started the day with poker. After all the party and marriage not all were with the same energy, so some wanted to stay at the lodge, some wanted to visit Panambur beach and some wanted to do shopping. We paid visit to Ideal Icecream again for lunch. Panambur beach is just beside the Mangalore port. The whole area was filled with trucks, Indian oil, railway track. Even just soil over there was purple in colour rich with iron and manganese I guess. I wish if it was all gold . This beach was like a normal beach – nice shore, lot of people, lot of eatable stalls. Got wet, did lot of jumping, lot of photo snaps and rain made to us to run away back to lodge. One thing Murgi & Jaya always used to join us where ever we use to go. Well! The trip was almost coming to an end, packed our luggages and back to railway station. Luckily this time we all got seats in the same bogie and were badly waiting for TC so that we could grab packed food specially packed and brought by Karthik (lambu) & CR. Slowly it started to sink in our minds that trip is now over, we have to get back to our work. Seriously I had forgot all about it for 3 days. We were Bangalore station well before the time. The final roll call – attendants of the weddings: Jagga, Pari, Ravi & Karishma, Nagaraj MC & Spoorthi, Murgi & Jaya, Nishant & Sarika, Srinivas, Srinivas CR, Karthik Lambu, Karthik Gurugalu, Kishore, Magesh, Babu, Zubair, Ajay, Cletus.
The question is whose will be the next wedding out of Bangalore and when will we have some trip like this again. Oh! no the better question can be why can’t we just go for another trip to some good place sometime? What do you say people….
