A reason to live.

Chapter 21 part a

The next morning, the sun shone bright and I woke up only at 9:30am.

I quickly scrubbed off my mehendi and did my morning routine. I had my brunch around noon.

All were doing some work or the other; I had an appointment with the beautician at 3:30pm. I packed all my things into a bag; I was going to stay in the wedding hall itself tonight as it would save time.(it was a beautiful room ,well lit, and comfortable. Zeeta, Vrithi and Cathy akka were going to stay with me. Krys had already joined my other friends)

The beautician came to the hall at 3:30pm. She started with my hair washing it mildly, blow drying, and setting it right, she curled it in the tips and secured a section of it with bobby pins. I liked what she had done to my hair, it looked dense, neat and elegant.

After a while

The guests had started to come and people kept on entering the dressing room. Thank God I was ready and only the final touches of makeup were left.

The engagement ceremony had begun and the first of the many functions was the thalapakati (turban) ceremony, where the men-mamas(maternal uncles) of both the families go on the stage and sit, they wear a turban on their head: hence the name of the ceremony.

They discuss as to why they should give their daughter, if the groom's side is capable of taking care of her and all other things after which they decide to give their daughter in marriage and exchange a tray of beetle nut and beetle leaves. Thus the engagement was now officially over.

{This whole function is proceeded by way of a story: the groom is imagined to be a hunter and went hunting, he spotted a beautiful deer-bride, he followed it and it led him to their home. Groom's family try to convince the bride's family to wed their daughter by saying that they have so much of wealth, are very respected etc, etc and that they will take care of the deer well.  They take the deer after giving the money as a guarantee to take the deer. Therefore the engagement is final}

My aunts called me out and the rituals had begun. A huge group of my aunts, cousins were all far off from the stage, they held many things, on huge steel trays were apples, oranges, sugar, sweets, flowers, sari, mirror, comb, powder, beetle leaves, beetle nut, chocolates, vermilion, sandal paste rose water, and jewelry. I was called on the beautifully decorated stage, it was so colourful and vibrant, I could hear kollywood songs played and I was swaying my head to its tune.

They placed all the things on the stage and each of them, starting from  the eldest came to me and  put the sandal paste on my cheeks and hands, kept flowers on my head, a few of them fed me the sweet, sprinkled the rose water, made me look at myself in the mirror and blessed me. In the end they gave me the sari it was a green sari, I was wearing a pink one.

After I changed to the green one the rest of them blessed me. (good thing my jewelry was gold else it would have been a tougher task to wear matching jewelry) .

I was really tired after all the standing, smiling, the bright lights flashing into my eyes, but I was too happy to notice it then.

I went to the dressing room, all my friends and close cousins were already there gossiping about some aunty and her dressing. Ria, Aki, Payal, Krys were talking how we all had thought that this day would come and it was already here, my cousins although were in deep discussion.

Payal took out the wedding invitation and showed it to me, it was a white invitation with a blue ribbon that was delicately wrapped around it in a bow, this card was specially done for my friends.

Vrithi had another invitation, I showed them that as well, it was given to my relatives, it was in golden with a band of designs with small red stone work on one side, the invitation as such was bigger in size to that of my friend’s invite, the invite was in English as well as in Tamil.

Vrithi, Zeeta, Swetha, Rithu, and Sandra, were older and giggled in the midst of their discussion. Zeeta went out and came in laughing "akka, they put a muruku maalai, and earring for athan" to which all started laughing and wanted to see Rohan like that. So they all rushed out and came back laughing.

Hey wattpadies,

I know it’s been a while since I've updated, sorry for the wait, but i really needed to work on this chapter ...in case I forgot any details

Athan is sister’s husband, some people also tell machan

Muruku is an Indian spiral shaped snack

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