My Best Friend's Wedding

I promised that I will write regularly. But that promise was broken to fulfill a bigger promise to my best friend - attend her wedding.

And so I had to leave my hubby dearest yet again for a few days and fly back to my home town. The fact that I had just gone to Bahrain and was coming back to India to attend a friend's wedding seemed indigestible to people. No one said anything, but they did raise eyebrows and said weird things like 'bahut achi friend hai kya'!? Had I said it's my cousins wedding, no one would have questioned. Why do we place friends last in our priority list? For me, friends are much more important than relatives whom we don't know from adam.

Anyway, it was also my first time to attend a Muslim wedding. We might be really different from each other but its strange how we have such similar customs.The sangeet songs, mehndi, hiding the shoe, opening thread from each others hand tied before the wedding, fishing for a jewel dipped in milk...lots of similar things.

Coming to the point, this post is for my darling. I have loads of best friends but somehow N has a very special place in my heart. We've been friends only for 4 years but this period has been so significant in our lives that we're inseparable. She did what nobody else could - make me open up and talk about my deepest emotions. We can talk endlessly, maybe because she's such a chatterbox. I had a love-hate relationship with her when we were doing MBA together. She would never help me much with 'our' project and I would crib how irresponsible she was. I shared loads with her, but she never did. After college we started becoming better friends. We started a small HR company and life changed for us.

We became best, best friends. I've written a lot about love and friendship on this blog. It's because these are the two subjects that hold most importance in my life. I learnt a new meaning of friendship from N. And so I cherish our bond most. If I had a problem, I never hesitated to share it with her. I felt proud when I could help her during her most troubled times. When I had visa issues after marriage and I couldn't be with the boy, N was the best support. It was her prayers too that helped me reunite with him. Whenever we were together, any third person seemed like an intruder! Oh, it sounds as if we are lovers...my bhabhi and my hubby do call us that!But that's how it is - a very very special friendship.

N got married yesterday to this sweetest guy. At one point I felt guilty of feeling jealous since she had a new 'best friend'! But that didn't last long for I was more happy for her to have found a guy who's just perfect. I want to be great friends with the guy too...so that our friendship could grow stronger. I want to tell her today that I love you N...and we'll be friends forever. We're married, our time zones don't match and we'll certainly wont be in the same city anymore...but we'll be together...in thick and thin...like always. And like true 'lovers'....distance will make our hearts grow fonder :)

It's Official!

We've heard a lot about Indian Babus. Any procedure that involves any government related employee, we know it would be ages before it reaches completion. From getting a telephone repaired/disconnected to renewing a passport to getting a driving license, the bigger it is the more cumbersome it gets.

Sometimes we are lucky and things go on smoothly. I would call such people blessed! Sometimes we are rich and we bribe to get our work done quickly. Again, blessed. But most of the time any amount of incessant cribbing falls short of the the torture we go through.

And so in my mind, government employees were slow, had an easy 9-5 job involving more of chai, samosa and gupshup than work and cared little about their customers. Until yesterday that is. So I’m in this country where Arabs have earned huge sums of money by refining oil. Sometimes their day begins at 8 and ends at 1. Their weekend is almost a 4-day thing wherein they work only for half day one day before and after the weekend. During Ramadan, i.e. for over a month in a year, their day ends at 3. Yesterday I had Visa related work. I went to the ministry before it opened so that I was amongst the first ones. There were about 50 more people like me. Even after 1.5 hours after their scheduled opening time, work didn’t start. Then the guard comes and says, today we have decided to remain closed!

Laughable, it is. This is just a small example of how the, well, babus operate here! It takes months to get a driving license. They fail you atleast twice before finally giving it. Finding a licenced instructor is tougher than finding God! When you do find one, he will ditch you a lot of times wasting precious time and taking your frustrations level to unbelievable heights. And then they show you attitude!

After seeing all this I have new found respect for our country! We are highly effective, laborious and cordial. Even a rude official answers your queries. Here, you would be lucky even if they understand what you are trying to ask! This doesn’t mean we should ignore the loopholes in our system. There are miles to go before Indian authorities reach global standards. But as they say, we find more satisfaction in life by seeing those who are below us, and so I am proud of things back home!

I hate myself!

Just for the time being though! I'm reading blogs after more than a month now. I had made a few, very few friends in this written world but it seems I've lost them now. I'm so engrossed in the small things in life that I'm not doing what I like doing best - writing and reading.

I feel guilty of wasting the precious time I've been given. Although in the last 1 month I have discovered a whole new place, met loadssssss of new people, have successfully changed a bachelor pad to a beautiful house(if you dont know, its a tough task!) and have cooked sumptuous grub for my darling hubby who has acknowledged every morsel to encourage me!! So what if my chapatis are still square, they are fully blown up and soft!

And that's why I love writing. You see, this post may seem petty to yo. But after writing all that I have done in the past 1 month, I feel less guilty!

And yes, I will write regularly from now on. Hopefully by declaring it publicly I will find time and return to my love often :)