There was a verbal war going on in the house for several days over getting the wedding card printed and I was watching all the incidents. I wanted a plain card printed and father was adamant that ‘Surendra Sharma (M.Com)’ should be written. Whereas till that time I had not completed M.Com.
.
My M.Com studies were still going on. Finally, two cards were printed. One card I printed was my own, and one card was my father’s.
The name of the girl I was getting married to was ‘Saubhagyavati’. I changed my future wife’s name to ‘Savita’.
Actually, the story is like this, I used to love a girl named Savita so much that even on a Sunday, if a friend would just tell me that he has seen Savita today, then I would be happy about this and tell that friend. Used to feed and drink.
Not only this, we had bullying in the buses also. We had explained to the in-charge of the buses, ‘Don’t run the bus until we come.’ And that’s how it used to be!’
Savita’s three-four friends would often deliberately talk among themselves in the bus to tell me, ‘We are going there to watch a movie, I don’t know whether we will meet on the bus on the way back.’
I also used to tell my friends, ‘As long as I am alive, I will get a bus and if the bus leaves, then understand that I have not survived.’
One day my friend bet me that if I talk to Savita, he will give me 20 rupees. I entered the bus carrying peanuts and said, ‘Savita, will you eat peanuts?’
Before she could answer, I said to my friend, ‘Enough, withdraw 20 rupees.’
That’s why I named my wife ‘Savita’. My in-laws said, ‘What is this name?’ Keep some other name. But here also I acted as per my wish.
However, on the card printed in Hindi, the bride’s name was written as ‘Saubhagyavati Savita’. I explained to all my friends that the elders in my family do not consider it good to dance on the road in marriage processions. So don’t try to dance in the wedding procession.
On the other hand, the band members were playing such tunes that even walking could be considered as dancing. Everyone was walking straight in a line. After some time, Bapu said angrily, ‘Hey, why are your friends not dancing?’
I said, ‘They are all bachelors. They are afraid that dancing in the wedding procession might cause problems in their marriage like me. Bapu said, ‘Brother, if we walk straight like this, how will the wedding procession be bright? Tell them to dance vigorously.
My friends were just waiting. As soon as he received my signal, he danced in such a way that the procession took three hours to cover the distance of three-four hundred yards. On the other hand, my father-in-law had sent the bottle to Janvase. It was my father-in-law’s daughter’s wedding, otherwise he himself would have been dancing in the wedding procession.
When it became too late after dancing, Bapu asked me to stop my friends. Now I could have stopped my friends, but how could I stop the alcohol that was dancing within them?
————-
Read this column also…
