Honey, I'm home!

Five years. It took me nearly five years to get off my lazy ass and update you guys. :)

The place still looks the same, not too shabby! I guess anyone hardly ever blogs anymore (for fun, anyway), and I figured it was time for me to restart, because Oh. My. God. Girlfriend! I have soooo much to tell you!

So, I found 'The One' as you guys know. Got married. Moved to another country. Witnessed a death in the family. Started a business. Had a kid. Witnessed a wedding in the family. Moved to another state. Moved my business. Witnessed a birth in the family. And overall, Grew Up And Learnt About Responsilibty And Other Such Things People Learn About When They Grow Up (There's a fabulous book title if I ever needed one)

:)

Nah, just kidding. I could never grow up!

(Can I just digress and say that as I'm typing this, I'm sitting in a lovely little cafe situated in Pali Mala, Bandra, Mumbai, sipping on a latte and having some banana bread. The weather is perfect and I'm so very happy while I wait here for my little Fartster, who's hard at play at school nearby.)

So much has happened that this update will come in parts:

I got married.

The wedding itself was amazing. I wish every single one of you could've come. Of course I didn't actually send a lot of you the invitations. I know. I'm terrible. Please keep loving me? The wedding was held in Nagpur in December 2010 and the weather was brilliant. I looked lovely (obviously) and greatly enjoyed the ceremony.

One learns a lot about human nature when one attends a wedding, especially your own.

1) Rites and Rituals: Indian families have a lot of rituals and superstitions at weddings. There's always one grand, old dame who is the unofficial director of events. Never mind that she doesn't really know shit about what needs to be done, but it's important that she play the part. No one knows what to do and it becomes a 'blind leading the blind' kinda situation. Everyone's just running around like headless chickens and not one single thing is accomplished. One just needs to sit back, sip on some ginger chai and do what needs to be done once everyone has reached a consensus on which version of the ritual needs to be followed.

2) V1.0 or V25.0: Rituals have different variations. You have the long way, the short way or the way that no one's ever heard of. We are experts at shortcuts. Unfortunately there were no shortcuts at my wedding. Sigh. Anyway, until people figure which version of the ritual they want, one should just sit back, sip on ginger chai and maybe munch on a samosa. Mmmmm samosa.....

3) Samosa: NO ONE will try and stuff you with food. During the ceremony you won't get to eat anything. At all. You'll sit through the pujas, get married, smile, take photos, have a baby, take the baby to school and suddenly you'll realise you didn't get to have a single bite at your wedding while everyone raves about the awesome food that was served. Sucks.

4) People suck: One sees the best and worst of people at one's wedding. It's quite traumatising and I would highly recommend the 'in one ear, and out the other ear' rule. After all, you wouldn't want that ginger chai flying into anyones face. 

5) Don't piss off your make-up lady: Speaking of faces, try not to piss off your make-up lady. Suck up to her, agree to everything she says and tell her she looks even more beautiful than you - the bride.

6) Being agreeable: Weddings entail you having to do shit that you don't really want to do. There's no way around this. You have to do things, period. Best to go on auto-mode and do what needs to be done. Speaking of agreeable, you also get to see how willing other people are when it comes to helping out. My friends and family were amazing. Heck, Avinash's family and friends were amazing. My brother and Arpeeta even babysat a friend at the hospital when she became quite ill (never mind that at the hospital itself he was like "What am I doing here?! She's not even my friend!). Salt of the earth. 

And lastly 7) Friends are amazing: I had my friends from Singapore and even some of my blogger friends attend my wedding. This blog has brought some truly wonderful people into my life and for them to be there during such an event? No words. Just a whole lot of love. 

Next up - my move to Kolkata. Wow.