Shobha weds Ashok, the gatepost read!

While passing this ceremonious entrance of that wedding reception with my friend Joseph, I barely had thoughts about writing this story in a blog like this.

Some things are like pickling. You would salt them away in memories, and when recollect later, they would put in more sense to your contemporary life.

When you are hungry, you won’t essentially do any adventures. But when you don’t have funds to buy your food, you might be forced to carry out some adventures to fill your stomach. Like attending a wedding! Attending a wedding is auspicious! But attending it without an invitation can be suspicious! And that will be very adventurous too.

Joseph looked like a gentleman among the reputable folks there, like a one with loads of responsibilities to bear in the function. I just tried to stand beside him and make my presence clear of doubts and glaring eyes.

He performed well, ran here and there, passed on messages, delegated orders, cracked jokes with seniors, and even helped the bride’s father to arrange the folks in line.

After this, he had also posed for photographs with the newly wed couple. The bride as well as the bridegroom smiled and shook hands with him! His face looked broadened with a smile. (Did he try to taunt the bride in between? I don’t remember now!)

By the time, I could realize the secret behind his Oscar-sizeable performance! The bride’s men would have thought that he was from the bridegroom’s side and the bridegroom’s party would have thought vice versa too.

The functions were over, and now it was time for our grand dinner. Wine and dine in a nice shining night! We consumed the day’s food altogether.

I remember Joseph, scolding the wine-server for making the guests waiting for a little longer on the cozy seats!

I'm a Manager. I'm Managing, A MAN who is AGING!

Kerala is a great place. But I must say that this greatness is only in its looks and not in its contemporary mores. As days grow, the people in Kerala are becoming more and more insane and insolent. They will just meddle into and screw your glitter of life. When people have no job except some smutty dissolute politics, you can’t expect any good instincts from them other than fraudulence and criminality. Luck or not, the world is yet more or less unknown about these dissolutions.

As a Keralite, I have inexplicable disappointment in this heavy truth. But truth is always bitter, I grasp.

One of my recent experiences had matched this gloomy fact and affirmed it without qualms.

I had gone to Kerala during last Easter. It was a nice time out as the stress of jobs and strain of ‘daily living’ had surrendered to a kind of enticing calmness. With my brother and two other friends I went to the nearest town, Punalur, for a movie. We were in bikes and had to park the bikes in a shed nearby the theatre. The shed was the part of a tourist bungalow lying close to it.

Once the movie got over we came back to the bikes but what we could find was awfully nasty that the bikes’ tyres were punctured, mirrors broken and fuel dripped out. Being furious, we had no other way but to question the guard in duty of the Bungalow. He was heavily drunk and was in a bad mood. When he denied answering we could estimate that none other than him did the crime. Being a Law Student and furthermore branded for being very instinctive, my brother had created a scene over there. He pointed out the nifty sections of the law like a priest reciting the preludes of verses!

Finally the man told us that the police had done those misdemeanors because it was non-parking area. He also claimed to have paid five hundred bucks to the police for the carelessness from his side.

My brother was at the end of his patience. He slapped the guard on the spot, as it was clear that he was lying.

By this time, somebody had called the police. ‘Drunkards attacking a guard’, police rushed in with necessary set up to offer all of us a night’s stay in the lockup.

Seeing police coming, the guard got charged up! Vengeful in mind, the over-smart guard took hold of my collar and tried to hit me with his knees. Caught on the spot for this misbehavior, the guard too was taken to the police custody.

From then till reaching the police station, it was a rain of all bad words in the language, a special talent that our policemen can boast of!

“Lock up! Oh my god, this is the first time I’m coming to a police station! That too, like a criminal! Beaten up and abused! My little brother, my friends, my pride, my self-respect , I am going to see all this agony?” I never wanted to argue with that foolish guard, I never wanted to question my bike’s damages, I never wanted to park my bike there, I never wanted to come for that movie... but no use now!

The policemen asked us to remove our shirts and shoes. My brother, who couldn’t digest what was really going on, opened his lawful mouth yet again, but to get beaten up again. My self-belief couldn’t prevent the brook of tears from flowing alongside the cheeks and falling down like a tap kept open. I cried in heart like a child.

From here, the things were not very awful as we expected. All of us were taken to the hospital for medical tests to find out whether drunk or not and this had saved us! It was found that we were normal but the guard, who too was taken for the tests, was drunk extremely.

Later we told the police that the guard had accused the police of doing the crime of damaging the bikes. Hearing this, the police rage has amplified against him and he got further charges.

See! Someone just intrudes into your life, makes it unhappiest and then gets himself in peril!

By this time, our poor dad had arrived there, with all his nerves arrested like frozen. He was neither angry nor sad. He had no emotions.

Because he wanted his sons to be conscientious and proactive always, though he never wanted to meet them in a police station in such a condition!

We lied to him that they didn’t beat us!