Real life and reel life

A colleague of mine was scheduled to get married on Saturday. That is all I knew. Amidst hectic work and relentless meetings, I knew I had to take time out to go to his wedding. And since he is the only technical support we have at office, we also knew that before A went off for his wedding, we would have get off our dependency addiction on him.

Come the week of the wedding and that is when the entire saga unfolds and well now I realise that all our melodrama in our art comes very much from real life. It turns out that A was being asked to marry a girl who his grand parents had selected for him. Turns out not only did he not want to get married to her but could not gather enough gumption to tell his parents.

Some how as the wedding date got closer, our entire office knew he did not want to get married but his parents did not. The wedding date got fixed and cards printed and distributed and this fellow was still silent, hoping his mind would be read.

I guess the fear of marriage, especially to someone who he just did not want to, drove him to extremes. Beginning this week he did not go home for three days and got his parents to tell the girl and her family that the wedding was off. But before that could happen, the girl ( because once in all this A had a tiff with her brother) called off the wedding.

Promtply, A called all his freinds and family and was whooping with joy while the girl's parents were requesting the boy's family to anyway go ahead with the wedding! Phew. But this was naught to be the end.

Now that he officially could say no, he did. The parents of the girl threatened him with a police complaint and asked he refund all the money they paid or are intending to pay for the wedding. Something similar has happened where due to whatever earlier circumstances prevailed, the chappie was asked to shell out cost of wedding to the girl's family and here I started wondering whether this was news happening real time.

Of course, one of my more travelled friends pointed out to me that this happens all over India and why I am so surprised and all that. But to me am still marvelling at it. Now he hopes to find and wed another girl in a couple of months.

And, of course, the clincher is that the reception goes on unabated. When A was asked about it, he said, 'Oh when I do get married, I will not have a reception." Eh?