I have had many friends over the last 25 years, whom I remember. But some friends seem to pass the test of time. Jai and Sameer are two of them. Sameer and I met at NIIT where we had signed up for a 3 year Software diploma. I was a lab assistant in those days (1994) and was assigned to Sameer's batch. Turned out both of us smoked, and used to mess with people's heads (quite successfully), on the transport home. Then one day we saw another chap smoking all by himself at NIIT who was also in Sameer's batch. The three smokers united. The new chap's name was Jai. We were a as motley bunch as possible. Besides the fact that we smoked, drank, were software nerds who lusted after women, we didn't have too much in common... an unlikely friendship if any.

Over the next three years, we went through ups and downs. Both Jai and I got into graduate school at the same time. He went to New York and I went to Pune. Sameer stayed behind to wrap up his last year of engineering. Jai joined Cisco and moved to San Francisco, and soon after I wrapped up my MBA and moved to Portland, Oregon. A year later, Sameer came to the US too... Minnesota, I believe. I was quite amazed, even though we were all over the country.

2001 was a bad year for the US. Recession hit us... I thought I would be pink slipped, so I quit and headed off to Australia with my new girlfriend Tricia. Sameer decided to brave the dot com bust and was biding his time. Jai managed to ward off many lay offs and stuck with Cisco.

Now, many years later, I got an email from Jai telling me of his wedding. I had met Madhur a couple of times before and I could tell they were certainly in love. 'Aint love grand. They braved the odds they faced... time, distance and family displeasure to stay together to announce their wedding.

Now that the flashback is over; back to the present day...

I have had a very busy year so far, working, and traveling and other obligations. I am trying to build my business, hire people, make contacts and finally delegate things. Plus I have been having some problems with the Passport Office, so to cut a long story short, I was happy to leave town for Delhi.

I left Hyderabad on Thursday, flew into Bombay, packed some clothes, and helped Tricia with the same. The boys decided to drop by that night. We were up looking at pictures of Ladakh, drinking Vodka and just having a good time till the early hours. Early morning I went to my local police station to work on the Passport issues I was facing. After I hit a brick wall there, Tricia and I dropped our car at the auto shop to get some work done that was long overdue. Then we jumped on the flight and headed off to Delhi.

As per routine Rajiv (Chicago) was late, but not by much; he was looking after Jai's other friends. As soon as I enter Delhi I feel my IQ drops at least 50 points. A cerebrally challenged city, but very politically charged. Social status too is of prime significance here.

We headed off to Jai's place and arrived there about 45 minutes later. It was about a year and a half since the last time I had met Jai. He is pretty much the same, though a little more serious in his approach to life... I guess time, and the friend circle you keep, make you the person you want to be. Jai told me of his Grandmother's passing away. I had met her about 5-6 times before that and had chatted with her quite a few times. She was a person who could span generations. Unfortunately, the one bad habit of hers was the end of her: smoking.

Jai, Chicago, Scott (Jai's colleague from Cisco) and I headed to the upstairs apartment and popped open a few beers and caught up for a bit. It is nice to be among old and some new friends. I enjoyed it. Plus I was far away from work. Today was Jai's Mehendi/Sangeet party. This is a very north Indian thing where henna is applied on the hands of the bride and all the women there. The event was held at DSOI (Defense Services Officer's Institute). This was a regular haunt for my parents in the mid 80's, during my dad's posting in New Delhi. I was amazed that the place still looked so similar to what I remembered 20 years ago. A lot of happy memories…

Tricia was one of the first to have Mehendi (Henna) applied on her hands. The artist did a decent job. Soon Madhur (Jai's better half) walked in with the entourage. After some frantic photo calls, she settled into a couch to chat with her friends and sisters. Liquor was flowing quite liberally, but I stuck to my conservative 2 beers. A while later, Madhur's henna work started. The bride's work can take 2-3 hours to complete. The artist was doing quite a thorough job. All her relatives as well as Jai and his relatives sat around her. Some of the women sang a few traditional songs which I had not heard before. As people crowded around her, the DJ brought a mike to the group and they divided into two. His side and hers. They started singing Bollywood songs. The objective of this game is that one has to start a song with the last letter of the song the other team sang. This continued for a while with much hilarity.

After a few more drinks, the people moved to a temporary dance floor which had blaring Punjabi music, the kind I hate the most... but after much convincing, Tricia and I joined the group when they played some disco songs from the 70's. That music wasn't too bad. Hunger pangs struck a little while later and we picked up some of the food there. Scott joined us at our table and we had a long conversation about life in India, his relationship with his estranged and now reconciling wife, his kids, working here and so much more.

Rajiv was dancing with some of his office colleagues, Jai and other people. That is certainly not my scene. See, I'm not uptight, but there I things I enjoy and there I things I don't. Dancing to Bollywood tracks is just very alien to me. Tricia too is a kindred soul when it comes to that. But with all the relatives and friends around to chat with, we had a great time.

While leaving, things were quite chaotic. We did not have enough cars and people were making second/third trips to drop people off. After slight logistical issues, which were immediately sorted out, we were home by about 1 am. Almost everyone headed to bed, as did Tricia. Jai hung around for a while but he too collapsed. Rahim tried valiantly to survive the drowsy spells but ended the his battle with a sleeping bout of flatulence: another one bit the dust. Rajiv returned and also promptly fell asleep. Scott and I were the last ones up. We chatted till about 6am when Tricia woke up and dropped by to look for me. We had been chatting about weddings, snowboarding, hiking, the IT industry, Pink Floyd, Soundgarden and so much more. Was very interesting to say the least.

Saturday morning arrived... I had gotten 3 hours of sleep and we had a puja to attend and a wedding after that. Tricia was required at the puja since it called for 7 married women. I don't know about that; I'd want 7 virgins, but that's just me.

Jai was all dressed up in a see through kurta (a long shirt) over his jeans. Now please understand this... for many years, I have been convinced that either one of Jai or Sameer are the missing links to our ancient ancestry, yup, you have probably guessed it by now. As Coco Chanel would say "He is hairy like monkey!". The priest who came was pretty cool. He explained most of the ceremony in English for Tricia and Scott. In fact he made a Ganapati idol with some dough. Now, I'm not religious or anything, but that was purrrty cool! I wanted to take it with me and bake it to make god shaped bread, now, THAT would be awesome. Not that I'm any good at baking or anything.

The ceremony was supposed to last about half an hour and ended up lasting over 2 hours. By the end, we had to put a bit of oil on Jai's head and some on his shirt and feet. Yours truly overdid it, as always. I poured a bunch of oil on his head and massaged it in. A point to be noted here is that it was mustard oil, which is just a little less smelly than skunk squirts. Jai was getting quite perturbed about the oil getting on his jeans which was amusing me even more. The women got together and tore off Jai's shirt at that point and he was monkeyfied immediately, we had children run away screaming, women passing out and old folks trying to keep their lunch down. Yeah, it was a scene straight from "Werewolf in London".

Jai had to hang on to his torn clothes, and generally look like a rape victim from your average C grade Bollywood flick, for a while while the ceremony continued. It was about 2pm when things ended and lunch was served soon after. Tricia loves Sindhi food. In fact, with vegetarian food, few can outdo the Sindhis and Marwaris. Tricia would agree whole heartedly, stuffing her face with Sindhi kari and trying to tell me how "goog" it is. We also love the little friend things they serve like potato and lotus stalk fritters. Excellent.

Post lunch we went upstairs for a quick nap, rather Tricia wanted to take a one. She gets really tired these days, carrying the fruit of my loins and everything. The boys sat down in the air-conditioned living room and drank some more beer. Tricia took a nap for about an hour, which recharged her somewhat. Rahim headed off to look for his suit, with Rajiv. We got ready to leave by about 5pm. At that point Jai, still reeking slightly from his sexy oil massage and was walking around in track pants. Always a good sign that things are going to be on-time. Tricia was looking sexy in a nice black gown and stilettos... very Goth, very nice. What can I say, she's one hot chick.

Well, push came to shove and we were all shoved out of the house. Rajiv (Chicago) being the awesome person he is, gave Tricia and me a ride. The wedding/reception was at a place called Essex Farms. This is right across from IIT Delhi… almost haloed ground for many wanna-be engineers. Thankfully, I never set my sights that high. I have been very comfortable being painfully average with intelligence, looks, height, social presence et al.

Jai showed up at the corner, where all of us assembled before Jai got on his "high horse"... literally, with his nephew. Predictably, a bunch of loud Eunuchs (hermaphrodites, pronounced You-nooks) came to hassle Dinesh and Jai's dad. This is an Indian tradition. The Eunuchs are supposed to bring good luck in popular folklore. In the 21st century people barely have time for such folklore, so these Eunuchs who were once revered and formed an essential part of weddings, births and such festivals are looked at with revulsion since they are not "normal". Sad but true. So our Eunuchs took over 3000 rupees from Jai's dad.

At that point the "Baraat" started. Let me define this. In north Indian communities it is customary for the bridegroom to travel to the bride's house on a horse, accompanied by his family members and close friends. This often becomes a huge procession, with its own band, dancers, and so much more. The groom and his horse are covered in finery and do not usually take part in the dancing and singing; that is left to the "baraatis" or people accompanying the procession. The term "baraati" is also used to describe any invitee from the groom's side. Our Baraat headed to Essex Farms, where the wedding and reception would take place, not the bride's home.

All of us, which included Shefali, Jai's parents, Dinesh, Vasu, Balu, Chicago, Rahim, Scott, Tricia and I among others, danced to the stucco of the bass drum, trumpets and the like. This was the first time I had ever done something like this. I was very amused and Jai looked very happy on his horse.

We got to the location where the bride's family greeted us with flowers. Jai and Madhur took their place on the stage and people started visiting with them. Soon the priest arrived and told us that the wedding was going to be outside. This was the month of July and it was bleedin' hot. I was thinkin' D'Oh! That was when the bride's sisters and friends are supposed to steal the groom’s shoes. Rahim, Chicago and I managed to save the shoes, but were told that, due to tradition, the bribe that is supposed to be paid to the girls will be paid regardless. Much ado over nothing.

As we assembled outside the air-conditioned building, on the grounds, the priest set up his apparatus and other equipment. I moved into action taking pictures, hoping for that one "Kodak moment". As soon as the priest saw me, he handed me the mike and asked me to be the MC. I was thinking... ummmmm yeah... an atheist, will be the MC of the religious wedding ceremony. Fantastic. I barely know the basics of these things, plus my knowledge of rituals is very stunted too. I realized I am going to make a donkey of myself in public again.

The priest did some pretty cool rituals, and almost had even a die hard non-believer like me convinced. He made the 9 planets with beetle nuts on a plate and each one was worshipped for a reason. Then he prayed to the god of misfortune to stay away from this young couple. He asked the goddess of wealth of bless them and watch over them. He asked every god he could summon to bless the couple with something. I was required to translate these after the prayers he offered. I stumbled over every translation, falling flat on my face with goop all over it, but me thinks, I mostly smelled like roses by the end, by contributing my bit for the wedding.

After the ceremony was done, everybody came and blessed the couple and headed into the building for a cold beer. As did I. The beer was a good idea. Unfortunately, the ratios of tables/chairs to the number of attendees, was woefully out of alignment, but Tricia and I managed to sit with Shefali and her mom, while I nursed my beer and a few more. I have to mention at this point that the fish fingers were fabulous. The way, at my wedding, the jumbo prawns were finger-lickin'-good, so were these. This from a man who is a confirmed beef / veal / venison lover.

Very typically Delhi, the DJ was playing Hindi techno-trance. Now, if was drunk outta my skull I might've enjoy that, but...for me, this was not such an occasion. The DJ dude must have either been stoned outta his head or was just being a Surdy. As always, all the young folk started dancing and really boogying down while, Trish and I sat and chatted with the relos. Like I mentioned earlier, dancing's not really my thing and Trish's tummy starts to ache if she stands for too long, she can forget jumping around on a stage! In any case our music preference would have been rock. Never the less, by the end of it we both got onto the dance floor to share the last dance with Jai and his bride for a few minutes and then high tailed it off the glowing plastic dance floor.

Due to her condition, Tricia needs to eat often and on time (and it's in the best interest of everyone around her that she do so!). We had been waiting for Madhur/Jai to get done with dancing so we can all do dinner with the family and Jai's dad had even arranged a table for everyone by about 11pm. We waited till about midnight and finally Trish had to have dinner - those yummy fish fingers will hold her for only so long. Jai's dad was getting ready for dinner and he asked me to get the DJ to shut off the music, which I did... happily. The DJ didn't want to listen, but it was ok, cause I wasn't drunk or else things would have been a little different.

Unfortunately, Chicago was not witness to that particular scene, and he asked the DJ to start off again, which he did happily. Jai's dad had to finally tell the DJ himself that time was up and finally we shut the music off again and headed to dinner where a bottle of champagne was opened and everybody toasted the couple. Tricia and I did not eat since we had done so already. It was about 1:30am at this point and the bride's side was starting to bargain for the shoes that WE had. The price was brought down to about 3000 rupees. Jai gave sterling silver rings to all the girls including Tricia. This is another tradition I am not aware of.

At about 2am, all of us left for Jai's place. We got there before Jai did and we decorated his room with flowers and petals. Rahim got the wonderful idea of putting a few bottles of booze on the bed. As always, we got carried away and we put about 40 bottles of liquor all over his bed. At which point Madhur arrived with Jai and the bride's family. Madhur had to carry out some ceremonies of breaking some earthen plate and spilling over a pot of rice... I guess to bring "plenty" into the home. Then they played a game where a ring is dropped into a large container filled with milk. Both the bride and groom put a hand in the container looking for the ring. Legend says that the person who finds the ring shall rule the home. Jai found the ring 2 times out of three. On the last time, he snuck the ring into his fist and pretended to continue looking... Madhur started getting desperate after a few seconds... it was quite amusing.

After that there was a ritual where each person puts a bit of money on some salt, which is passed between the person and the bride three times. The objective is to drop as little of the salt as possible. Again, I'm not sure of the significance of this particular tradition.

Following which we headed to Jai's room... now also Madhur's to some healthy ribbing. I was there for about 10 minutes when Tricia told me that she wanted to crash - it was nearly 4am afterall. I could also feel the effects of sleep depravation from over the last 2 months too, so we headed upstairs and fell asleep very quickly. Jai was in the process of showing videos of Chicago and him, completely drunk. Amusing, but I had seen these a few times.

Next morning, true to my body clock, I woke up early, but lay in bed for a while, till Tricia too stirred. We headed downstairs for breakkie and Scott, Chicago and Rahim joined us there, a little later. After our hunger was killed and Jai exited his room with his bride still inside to a few catcalls which he discreetly ignored. Being ignored never really stops people like us anyways. After a few more jeers, we headed upstairs. There we showered and got ready for the day. Chicago came to me and told me that nearly 5000 rupees was stolen from his wallet, which was inside his bag. Scott also had 2-3 rolls of film missing, which I was informed about later. We spoke to Jai's Dad about it, but we could not lay the blame on anyone. Chicago was devastated. I was also feeling quite bad for him. In spite of this we headed out of the house cause Trish wanted to look for some maternity clothes, which we tried to find all over the place, even all the way in Gurgaon, with no success.

I was getting a little fidgety by the end since I wanted to head towards Jai's granny's "chautha". This is a ceremony performed to celebrate the life of the deceased person, 4 days after the death. We got there with 15 minutes to spare and Chicago was still quite distracted by his early morning loss. So, to ease his trouble, Rahim, Scott, Tricia and I contributed some money and almost covered his loss. To Tricia, it was simple, a small hit to each person is better than a large hit to one. Plus Rajiv is one stellar chap and has been there whenever I have needed him.

At the ceremony, we distributed "Prasad" (Literally, it means food that is first offered to God and then consumed with the faith that God has blessed it.) and cold water to everyone before they dispersed. Jai gave Tricia a cool skirt and me a nice hand woven kurta (the long shirt), thankfully not the transparent/translucent sexy kinds. :-)

We decided to head off to a coffee place to sit and chat for a while, but that was not to be, since it took so long to get there and then find parking. We barely got there, parked, ordered and we had to head to the airport to catch our flight back to Bombay: a journey that would put an end to a whirlwind, sleep deprived, joyous vacation. Chicago never went to the coffee place since he was quite tired and needed the sleep. He sat in the back seat of the car and slept while the rest of us went for the coffee. On my return to the car, he was still quite sleepy, so I decided to drive. We drove to the domestic airport where Chicago dropped us off. That is when I told him about the money in his wallet since he was still quite distracted. So much that he didn't even notice the money Trish had quietly snuck back into his wallet when he wasn't looking. It was time to put him out of his misery.

Tricia and I checked in and were told that we were the last passengers to board, so we could not get seats together. After we entered the aircraft, we tried to ask some people to accommodate us, so we could sit together, but nobody wanted a center seat for an eighty minute flight - go figure. Just before we took off the air hostess moved us to an emergency exit isle, so we could sit together; there was just one row where the seats were not taken. Then started our eventful flight. Our excitement wasn't over by a long shot.

The flight started off normally, we took off, headed towards Bombay and were at cruising altitude in about 10 minutes. I was surprised that, after 25 minutes, the Captain did not switch the seatbelts sign off. I fly all the time, almost every weekend for work, so I am used to 10 minutes and seatbelts off. I really wanted to change my t-shirt since it was starting to smell quite foul. I saw the airhostess hurrying around, which was a little curious too. I went to the loo, changed and came back to my seat. Trish also went to the loo, and while she was walking to the back of the plane 3 airhostesses must have told her to be careful. She found that quite strange considering that we weren't experiencing any turbulance. Nevertheless, dinner was served soon after. The food on Indian Airlines is pretty good. They do not skimp on that part.

We were supposed to land at Bombay at about 10pm. At around that time I looked out of the window and could see my island city, but the aircraft continued to circle. I told Tricia that, she said, well, we must be waiting our turn to land. I agreed. After 20 minutes of circuits, I was wondering what exactly was the matter. Then suddenly, the Captain started our descent and we could see the twinkling lights of the megapolis. Suddenly the pilot pulled up again and we circled for another 10-15 minutes. Then at a highish altitude, I heard the undercarriage coming down. Again, not normal. After a few seconds an air hostess sat down right next to us at the Emergency Exit. Not a good sign. I looked at Tricia and said... "Well, at least we are together.." and we smiled. Nope, no nervousness or anything. Since I fly so much, I could easily become a statistic.

As the pilot started his final descent, we saw the air hostess sitting next to us twitching nervously and she was reading through the emergency card they keep in the seat pockets in front of you, again, not a good sign. Then we saw the Cabin Crew In-Charge, rushing around with the yellow Emergency Procedures Manual. Again, I was not gaining in confidence. As we touched down, you could almost hear a sigh of relief from the air hostess and the rest of the crew. At this point most of the passengers did not seem to even have a clue. The pilot did his full reverse thrusts and we stopped almost on a dime. As soon the tires touched the ground, I could hear a loud flapping and it sounded like the pressure was low on the wheels on the left. As the aircraft slowed down on the runway... we just stopped. Just like that. I heard a high whining sound, like a winch, but had no idea what it really was. We were on the runway for about 15 minutes, and then the captain announced that due to an undercarriage failure during landing, we could not move and after another 5 minutes, we were towed to a bay, where all of us disembarked - most of the passerngers completely unaware.

As we walked out, Tricia and I looked at each other. Our lives always seem to have some bit of excitement in it. Funny but true.