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‘The bride cannot possibly go missing. If Kas takes longer, then we will say Kas is in the room with Vikram. Worst case scenario, we will have to just tell our parents, but the longer we can avoid doing that, the more time we buy.’
‘Right!’ said Paddy.
‘And after picking up Anu?’ asked Vikram.
‘Good question,’ said Pitajee, looking at Vikram. He had definitely not thought this far. I mentally LOL-ed.
‘Get Anu here. The panditji will be waiting, I will make sure that he is,’ said Purva.
I felt goosebumps on my hands. This could not really be happening.
‘Now go, we don’t have much time. If we can get to Anu before her baraat does, it will save us a lot of trouble.’
Pitajee nodded his head, looking a little nervous now that the moment was upon us. So bizarre was the whole idea that I think we were collectively trying not to think too much lest we thought the better of it. Hurry it all up, lest someone begins to think sensibly. How mature!
I put my arm around Pitajee’s shoulders. ‘We will do it!’ I said, pumping my fist in the air.
‘Let’s go, then!’ said Pitajee and I kicked off the heels and quickly put on tennis shoes.
As the two of us rushed out of the room, Purva put a hand on Pitajee’s shoulders. Pitajee looked back at him.
‘That’s my bride there with you,’ he said, grinning. ‘Get her back on time.’
‘Aye, aye, captain,’ said Pitajee, as nervous laughter filled the room.
Taj Delhi, Wedding Grounds, 10 December 2013, 12.14 a.m.
‘Walk in like you belong,’ I whispered to Pitajee as the two of us walked inside the wedding hall. The guards at the gate had looked weirdly at us, unsure about letting another woman in a red lehenga inside.
‘Now you take the right and I will take the left. Whoever sees Anu whistles and the other joins. The idea is to run away with Anu flanked on either side by you and me. Remember, you and I, on either side of Anu,’ I reminded him.
Pitajee nodded his head absently and cast one look at the sumptuous-looking array of food not too far from us. The gardens were huge and decorated opulently for the wedding of the daughter of Ahya and Govind Goswami. Red-and-gold drapes hung on the walls, pretty flowers decorated the intricately-set tables. One of the many fat and well-dressed aunties walked by me.
‘My designer,’ said one such aunty – who probably weighed a hundred kilos – to another who seemed to weigh at least a hundred and fifty, ‘says I look slim in pink.’
One-fifty-kilo Aunty, looked enviously at the svelte figure of hundred-kilo Aunty. I gulped. It seemed like I had entered a whole new world.
I stealthily walked past another group of aunties.
‘Ritu Kumar?’ said one aunty, fingering the sari of another one.
‘Oh no!’ said the lady, quite horrified ‘Sabyasachi! Vidya is also a client, you know,’ she said with a dainty shrug of her shoulders.
‘Vidya? From our building?’ said the first aunty, not quite understanding.
‘Oh ho, Vidya Balan!’ said aunty-in-Sabyasachi, rolling her eyes.
I felt a little faint and quite homesick for my own banal, middle-class wedding which was … well … taking place without me for the time being.
The things I do for friends!
I was thinking these thoughts with a fairly philosophical air when I saw her. In the middle of a group of elegantly-dressed people, resplendent in red, stood my beautiful, gorgeous Anu. I looked dismally around her. A well-decorated boy, who could only be Saumen, stood by her, garland in hand. The jaimala was about to happen! The timing could not have been worse!
Anu was walking slowly, talking in hushed tones to her little sister, Anjali, who walked next to her. The two seemed to be in deep conversation. I had no doubt about what was being discussed. Anjali’s eyes grew large as she spotted me. As if in slow motion I saw her look left and then right. She then elbowed her sister and pointed in my direction.
‘Oh!’ I said, hyperventilating as I spotted, from the corner of my eye, at least twenty policemen who had been on duty all along. I am now going to help my friend run away from her own wedding! In front of the police!
Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!
