We woke up early morning to make sure we didn’t miss the wedding ceremony at the temple. Nandakrishnan and Punya were allotted a time slot between 8:00 – 9:00 AM and the wedding could happen anytime in between. It was only by chance that we reached the ‘nada’ 15 minutes in advance. The extra effort paid off as the Pujaris for some random reason decided to conduct the ceremonies before 8:00. We watched Nandakrishnan and Punya tie the knot, walk the circles, and put leaf garlands around each other’s necks. The pujaris rushed through their ceremonies before handing over the couple to the photographers. Rachana and Kalayani joined us somewhere in between while Varsha and Niranjana only reached well after everything was done. We still had some time to kill before the function at the hall, so we had a photo session for ourselves and decided to head for breakfast. The three of us: Me, Nandu, and Pro went for breakfast along with Rachana and Kalyani. I left my camera with Varsha as she was busy taking photos of her other friends. She was handling the camera with such confidence that I thought she was a professional photographer. It was only later when I took out the memory card and deleted a bunch of blurred photos en masse that I understood I was wrong.
The breakfast trip was quite eventful as well. All the eateries in the temple premises were filled to the brim. At the first eatery we entered, we gave our names to the waiter and waited patiently as we do at any Bangalore eatery on a weekend. It was only later that we understood that we had to stalk and pounce upon emptying tables to capture our seats. Lacking the skills for the same, we moved to another eatery where the rush was less. We ordered Dosas and tea/coffee and decided to go back to the temple.
We spent a while roaming around the temple and then headed to the hall with still time for the function to begin. Nandakrishnan and Punya were done with their photo sessions and were struggling to have breakfast in all the clothing and jewelry. We joined them at their table and started going over the dance routine for one final time. We used paper cups to get the positioning right. This was one of those dances that sounded great on paper but was never actually tried out. We decided to do a sample run just 15 minutes before the actual event. We gathered in the narrow hallway and tried out the steps for the first time. This did give me some confidence. Nandakrishan couldn’t join the practice fully as he was busy with other groom duties. It was only five minutes before the actual entry dance that he and Punya decided on the steps for their entry. Surprisingly, he played the entry part quite well. However, he made a total mess of the group dance. Both dances were well received by the Guruvayur crowd which mostly contained elders. With the dances done, we joined the audience for the remaining proceedings. The proceedings were followed by a good vegetarian Sadhya at the back of the hall. Puthukkad and Meera joined us somewhere in between. Puthukkad (original name – Deepak Puthukkad) had been Nandakrishnan’s roommate during his early days at Synopsys. Both of them were also our batchmates at MEC. We clicked some group photos, bid our farewells, and started plans for the onward journey.
This is where the plan starts changing rapidly. Originally me and Pro planned to start our onward journey to Trivandrum along with the wedding party. Sometime during the function, Pro invited Varsha and Niranjana also to come to Trivandrum. This left both of them in a lurch. They weren’t originally planning to come for the function at Trivandrum. However, hearing our plan they started rethinking. I too encouraged them but didn’t think they would be up for such a spontaneous plan. Anyways, thwarting all assumptions, both of them decided to come along to Trivandrum. Of course, it took quite a bit of time for the decision to come. The wedding party had already left by the time, they reached a consensus.
We debated for a while on which route to take to Trivandrum. With the wedding party already gone, we were at liberty to take whichever route we deemed fit. The Alappuzha route seemed shorter, however, Nandu had suggested we take MC Road as it was a ‘four-line highway’ from Kottayam to Trivandrum. With limited knowledge about Kerala roads and waning faith in Google Maps, we decided to take Nandu’s word as gospel and take MC Road to Trivandrum.
Five minutes into the journey Varsha had already slept off. Niranjana was a more attentive traveller paying attention to the road and changing scenery. The scenery wasn’t particularly interesting though. It was just urban roads and vehicles all around us. Apart from a few towns on the way, the traffic was kind towards us. We paused somewhere near Angamaly for some refreshments. Me and Niranjana took coffee while Pro and Varsha went for tea. Varsha complained that the tea was too sweet, nonetheless, she stayed awake for a while after this and made us play Aswamedham and a movie-guessing game. Niranjana wasn’t interested in the movie game and kept complaining her movie knowledge was limited. Nonetheless, she was getting most of the answers right. The games helped in lightening up the journey which had started to become a bit exhausting by now. The traffic was less, but still significant enough to tire us. Nandu’s promised four-lane road was yet to start and it had started to get dark. Eventually, I gave up and handed over the steering to Pro way earlier than I planned to. We stopped again at Thiruvalla for dinner. The food wasn’t great, but manageable. We again ordered two glasses each of tea and coffee. Varsha wasn’t satisfied with the tea here either. By the time we were done with dinner, it had started to rain. It was becoming increasingly certain that we would never make it in time to Trivandrum for Punya’s ‘Griha-praveshnam’. The four-lane road Nandu promised still didn’t come and the rain was not going to make our travel any faster. Anyway, Pro had other ideas and put the pedal to the floor and cruised through the last 100 kilometers. We still reached late, but not by much. We sat down with the newlyweds and shared our travel stories – how Varsha and Niranjana decided to come, Varsha’s problem with all the tea, the rain playing spoilsport, Pro’s final flourish, Nandu’s promised four-lane road and so on and so forth. We delayed their official first night by at least half an hour before remembering we still had an hour’s travel to reach our hotel in Kovalam.
For a brief moment, I wondered if there was any need to book a hotel so far away from the city. But this was not just another wedding trip for us. This was also meant to be a getaway. A chance to relax. And what better way to relax than waking up to the sound of waves hitting the sand?
Read.Reflect.Repeat 