Rahul and me got ready to go and see the prospective bride. Rahul got dressed with a blue denim jeans, a white shirt with red stripes and a sports coat. I wore a white jeans and black tee shirt. At around 9 am morning, we set for their house. Rahul's mom looked at me and I understood what she wants me to do. Anyway, we left home and reached their house in half an hour. Their house was a big one. It is actually wrong to say that it is a house. It was a bungalow. Its a one storied having slopy roofs and white walled building with a big lawn in the front and a wide verandha. We drove almost to the entrace of the house and figured out someone is on the wings on the verandha. As soon as we arrived, the guy ran towards us and introduced himself as Soumya's dad. We put a big namaste to him and he made our way to the living room. The living room was a huge one with 4 large size sofa sets and a glass coffee table in the center. The floor has black and white granite pieces with all walls white in color. The walls were decorated with some canvas art works of some unknown artist. There was also a magnificent glass chandelier hanging from the top. From the house, it was obvious that the family is a rich one. Her father made us sit and left assuring us to come back soon. The room was so quite that our whisper made a noise. We wonder whether this calm is before the storm and we were right. As her father left us alone in the living room, we made ourselves comfortable and rolled our eyes throught out the room to capture its beauty. And, our rolling ends when we saw a huge crowd is marching towards us. We stood and made our hands close to greet them. Her dad introduced all of them to us. Grand father, grand mother, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, niece, his brother, daughter in law, brother's children and a lot of them. They are all total 21 people. But, Soumya was missing. She was not yet in the scene. After 15 minute of long introduction ceremony, we are allowed to sit again. All those people sat around us. Then we are served with 15 types of sweet emerged in ghee, 10 types of snack and 8 types of fruits. There were total 33 different kind of things served on the coffee table but nothing was eatable, at least not for me. There was nothing thats spicy or at least of any taste other than sweet. Marwaris belive that on this type of occasion, anything other than sweet may turn into bad endings. So, I preferred not to touch anything, though all the members forced us a lot. Rahul took some snacks and then a question answer round started. We have been fired with a series of questions. They didn't even bother to spare me. I was not there to see their daughter. I was just there to have a feel good factor for my best friend. But I got into the victim's shoes.
What school did you go?
Whats your college?
Which company you are joining?
Is it a private or a govt sector?
How many people work in your company?
Will you settle in INDIA or abroad?
Why are you going for a job?
Why not you start your own business?
Is your job secured?
What type of work your company do?
What work you are going to do?
Why not you open a shop here?
We have answered all the nonsense questions with a lot sense. After 40 minutes of rigorous question-answer session we got a break. May be they are short of questions. It was the best opportunity for us to escape, I thought. So I gave a call to Rahul’s cell. Rahul took out the phone from his pocket and before he could react, I said: “I have set the alarm. We need to attend the get together party at 11. I have told you Rahul,right?”.
Soumya’s dad caught the exceptions and asked: are you guys going anywhere? I jumped and replied "yes, we have a get-together of old college friends. It is at 11 so we have to rush". Soumya’s dad was an intelligent man. So he promptly looked at Soumya’s mother and told her to bring Soumya though his eye gestures.
