Locked down in lockdown

22-The rituals

"Let's postpone the wedding till this lockdown clears up, he would recover properly until that." The next morning Vikrant's father, Rangayya called Vaani's father.

Vaani was already expecting this but she did not expect them to call 6 in the morning. All of Vaani's maternal aunts were coming tomorrow with their children and her grandmother.

"There are only a few days for the wedding now, lets just get it over with now. Already the wedding was canceled once. I don't want any other problem, tell them." Vaani's mom whispered to her husband lightly in the background.

They had crossed too many obstacles and had come this far for the wedding, she did not want any other problem in her daughter's marriage.

"As you say, as you say," Rangayya said hanging up.

The wedding was on the same date now, no moving up or down.

"I need names of 25 people, we need to go and apply for marriage passes in Tehshildar's office" Vikrant texted Vaani after the call.

"ok"

But the main problem now was choosing 20 people who would attend the marriage. Out of 50, they had divided as 25 from the boy's side and 25 from the girl's. And the 25 included the bride, which left 24 people, and in that alone, Vaani's family consisted of 4 others, her parents, brother, and sister. So now only 20 people to invite. This was the deciding moment and Vaani was worried that she would be stuck with an old bunch in her wedding.

She wanted all of her cousins to be there, which was not going to happen now, so she had requested, almost begged her mother that she wanted Meghna to be there at her wedding. She wanted nothing else.

Vikrant on the other hand had lost too much weight and was now busy in the arrangements, having little time left in the marriage. Both the side hadn't even printed invitation cards because of this Lockdown. Now that the date was fixed, fixed, they were going to print a few handfuls, just for namesake. Just to keep in front of God, because at this time going to anyone's home to give the invitation card was out of the question. 

"I need your proper address, ask your dad and tell me" Virant ordered Vaani instead of calling her dad directly. 

"Call him directly and ask please" Vaani texted him, busy packing her belongings and sorting out her old, boyish clothes to give out to her cousins. It was hard to part with her clothes which she had bought with soo much love. She wouldn't be able to wear them now, so she decided to give them out.

"Can't you do even a simple work? " He texted back angry. Vaani was getting tired of his mood swings. When he is sweet he is too sweet and when he gets irritated, he takes out all his anger on her. She was not a garbage can, to take in all his anger and she wanted to reprimand him for that.

"Dad is not here, so I asked you to call him directly, instead of this double work," Vaani informed him, as nicely as she could. He was not the only one getting married.

Though it was true that he was handling the marriage arrangements, it was his fault that he refused to ask for any help from his brother or his father. His father had already washed his hands off of any work, so he was out of the question. It was Virant's own doing, that had led him to this. He had put off everything at the last moment to arrange things. He hadn't even bought his clothes yet for the wedding.

He was caught between too many things, also there was this thing where they had to bring Vaani home a day before the wedding and he had no idea where she was going to stay, and who was going to bring her. 

The houses have to be painted before any wedding, but Vaani's dad just painted a wall in his new house, and Vikrant's house was too big to be painted so he just painted his new room. Nobody was following any ritual properly.