Tryst With Life

Sri flipped open the pages of her diary, which she updates, quite regularly. Her gaze froze on the date and her lips curled, to reveal a crooked smile – her trademark! It was the 12 th of October, on her diary – the day she and Gautham, entered a bond of togetherness, a promise meant to be kept for life. It was the day of a wedding of elaborate elegance, the day they said yes, to each other! What impressed me was the way Sri narrated the rituals of a typical TamBrahm wedding! It sent visuals all across my mind. I could almost imagine every scene of what she narrated. All what seemed like rituals to me, made sense. It made absolute sense, as each portion seemed to strengthen the bond, they already had, for each other! They got married, the typical Tamil Brahmin way. The wedding rituals for a Tamil Iyer wedding was typically meant to last 5 days. But modern times have cropped the whole wedding to crisp 3 day grand celebration at a kalayana mandapam (wedding hall). With changin

“Hey, I am sorry. I am late as usual”, he said, grasping for breath. He was the scrawny guy, who was not astonishingly handsome, who did not have one of those love-at-first-sight looks, who is not someone you will go weak on your knees on seeing. But to her, he was all of this and more . She was angry. If he touched her cheeks right now, he would feel the heat of her anger. They were flushing in anger! Sri had been waiting for quite some time now. “Gautham this is probably the I-dunno-how-many-th-time you are doing this. Say sorry only when you mean it. Not if you are going to repeat it again”, she sulked He stood there smiling, as if nothing had happened. He was panting for breath. Late that he was, he always had the urgency to see her. To see that little glow on her face, whenever she saw him, to see her cheeks flush in anger and to see… hold it. She just smiled! “Listen. You do anything but adjust that hair of yours. The way it is unkempt and the way you ruffl