The Yorkshire Biryani

ONE:MAYFIELD CHARACTERS part-04

Day 2:

Greg woke up to a phone call from Alistair.

"Remember my neighbor, the widow from Bharat?"

"The neighbor we nicked the goat from?" asked Greg.

"No mate, that's the one on the left. I'm talking about the couple that stayed two houses to the right. My dad is getting married to her. He's been fidgeting around with his phone during the night recently. I never could have imagined something this big was coming though. The marriage is on Thursday, two days from now, but he'd kept hush about it with me until today. I guess the poor old man feels embarrassed. Anyway, he wants to impress her by conducting the marriage in a Sardar style. You know that Sikh marriages are not like regular Hindu marriages, right? They conduct it in some different way. He was blushing when he requested I organize it for him. The time is too short, but he wants me to make the best possible arrangements. I figure if we get hold of a pundit and take care of the marriage arrangements, we might mint in some money on this deal."

"Really?" Greg sat up. "That's great mate, let's do it and earn some money! By the way, it's not a pundit, it's a Guru. Have you seen the Hindustanis with a Turban and a long beard? They are the Sikhs, mate. You are going to have some hairy relatives, I suppose. Do you know what's inside the turban? It's all hair, mate. H-A-I-R. When they let it down, it runs down to the floor," Greg started to laugh hysterically.

"Well, do you know any Gurus?" Alistair asked.

"Yeah mate, I know a few."

He did know some Gurus, from a marriage he had organized many years ago. He had to however search for their addresses on the Inaiyam. They were all in bigger cities though. Sheffield was the closest big city, but it was about eight kilometers away from where they lived.

XXX

Greg washed his face, brushed his teeth, changed his clothes and headed to the police station. He walked straight in to meet the inspector.

"Hello sir," he exclaimed.

"You know me from two days back."

"You are the Kusthi guy, aren't you?" the inspector asked.

"Yes sir," his face brightened.

"Sir, I have to tell you how sorry I am about the day before yesterday," Greg said, before continuing, "I've learnt my lesson. I promise you that I won't do anything crazy like that again."

The policeman was in a happy mood. "And I'm not going to be able to do anything with your scooter either. How does that still run?"

"Sir, I'm trying to represent Yorkshire in Kusthi, so I'm going to London in two days. The match is being broadcast on channel two. You can watch it live."

They became friends over Kusthi. Greg was a natural at talking to people and managed to talk his way out of the toughest situations. Some people thought he had learnt it by handling his dad. He handed over three hundred quid to the policeman, who took it and smiled.

He took his vespa, met his friends at the nearest roundabout and set off to Sheffield.

XXX

As they rode, they slowly witnessed huge buildings popping up. They also noticed more crowd, more litter, more chaos, and more ads. There was also more Hindi, more Hindustani clothing- in fact, simply more of everything.

They went straight to the Guru's House. Before knocking, Greg asked Alistair how much his dad was going to pay for the arrangements. Alistair explained that his dad was very happy that things had shaped up well for him, so he was willing to pay a hefty sum if they managed to arrange a Sikh traditional marriage.