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What A Weekend! Part-2

Song of the day: Its the time to disco….Kal Ho Naa Ho

Alas, that day 7 am was early! I don’t know, maybe because of the one hour difference,or maybe because I had fallen asleep in the car, I did not sleep well. I kept waking up and going to bed all night. So in the morning, when Punnidear’s alarm went off, I was awake. She first woke Neeraj up and then when she shook me, I retorted with a “main already jaag gayi hoon”( I am already awake). It was supposed to come out nicely but I think it came out in the grumpy early morning voice I must have scared her because she said okay and went to get ready. So I was supposed to have been awake right? I still lay there forEVER before I got up and went upstairs to the living room from the basement.

We had morning nashta and at the table were four people. Two with an extremely desi breakfast, and the other two with a very American breakfast! Pratik and I were having chai and matthi (or masala puris as Gujjus would call it) and Punni and her brother were having milk and chocolate chip cookies! I think someone even made a joke about it, but can’t put it into words now!

Breakfast - check, Amplifiers - check, Laptop - check, Cables, wires, etc. - check, harddrive - check, decorations - check, everyone - check! So finally after checking off every item on our list made on a paper napkin, about 8 or so of us left for the banquet hall. We hung up decorations, moved things around, used duct-tape that we weren’t really supposed to, saw part of NP’s slideshow that they were going to show at night. We kept telling Neeraj and Poonam that it didn’t look good, color didn’t show well, yeh problem hai, woh problem hai, just so we could get a glimpse of more of the show before everyone else, but neither one of them relented and guarded their slideshow well! The banquet hall looked great, it was very elegantly designed, so we really didn’t have to put a lot of frills. We left right before lunchtime to back home.

Before we had left the banquet hall, I was given two tasks in preparation for the night. First was to make English translations of all the songs in the slideshow for all the American friends. Second was to compile a CD of romantic songs to be played while guests were having their appetizers before the actual fun began! I was all up for it! It was harder than I thought it would be to translate the beautiful lyrics of some Hindi songs without getting much lost in translation. I was happy with the final outcome. Poonamdear was very happy! But now that I look back at the sheet, I do find that so many things could have been better, but I think overall we had met our goal. We gave some final touches to the booklet, and printed them off. Then I went on and must have selected many songs for the CD. Then Punni finalized the songs and burnt it for the night! Her guests loved it! I must have sat in front of the computer for a few hours to do this because I didn’t notice people around. People went in and out of the room and before I knew it, their whole house was full with guests from all over trying to get dressed for the party!

Thats the beauty and fun when there’s an Indian party. Everyone takes over the home of their host, has fun and still manages to get dressed and leave in time! Just amazing! Punni’s American friends who had visited India with them had bought sarees from there and were over to get dressed. At first I thought I could do it, so I told Poonam’s mumma that “yea sure I could help them”. But you see, wearing a saree yourself is VERY different from helping someone else put it on. However, I did do a decent job getting started. Then two other aunties joined me, and then rolled out the safety pins, makeshift skirts, turn around, raise your hands, this that, it was fun! I wish we had video of that event, quite memorable. We ended up wrapping the sarees in three different ways on all three of her friends! And ALL THREE looked gorgeous, and managed it well throughout the party too. With all three dressed and gone, it was time for all of us to get dressed.

“Yeh pin yahaan lagaana. Is this too long? Is the makeup okay? Yeh lipstick theek hai? Arre sab tyaar hue ke nahi? Aunty main jewellery kya pehnu? Who’s going first? Here, take these bangles. Someone pass some bindis.”

One by one everyone got dressed and left. Punni, me and her cousin were the last three people to get dressed. We got Poonam ready and then phew! In a second it seemed that the whole house had calmed down with everyone gone. The last three people left were Neeraj, Poonam, and me.

They make the cutest pair ever, especially when they stand beside each other and look in the mirror, and then do nok-jhok! I took some pictures of them in the house, we made sure everything was locked, and finally left for the party! We were a bit early there too for their entrance, so we decided to kill some time at this parking lot, and that too was a dentist’s office parking lot! Out time killing churned out some nice photographs! Finally we made it to the banquet hall. I went and took my seat at Table 2 and then Neeraj and Poonam finally made their grand entrance. Let the party begin!

To be continued……