D-Day

Today was the day. Finally. It had taken a year to get here. From the first time her parents had met him, and had totally hated him. She remembered every minute of that torturous dinner. Worse still, they had hated his parents, if it was possible, even more. That was an even more vivid memory.

Never.
Over our dead body.
Is this what we brought you up for? To see this day?
Our very own daughter. *Sigh*
Why didn’t I die before having to go through this?
We gave her too much freedom. *Sigh*
No!

This story had all the ingredients of the perfect Bollywood pot-boiler, now, if only she could sing and dance to it all. It had taken months of crying, screaming and threatening to convince them that they had no choice. It had taken even longer to get the parents to be civil to each other. To be honest they never really got there. Though they did reach a sort of semi-civil state of being, where they ignored each other completely and went ahead and did just what the other didn’t want.

Horoscope.
We don’t believe in all that.
Diamond ring.
We insist on gold. It’s tradition.
Temple Wedding.
Fancy Wedding.
Fancy Wedding.
Temple Wedding.
Our style.
Our style.
Bombay.
Bangalore.
Yellow sari.
Red sari.

It went on and on. She didn’t have a say in any of her wedding preparations. Neither did he. Apparently it was enough that the parents had (reluctantly) agreed to this match, and from here on they would run the show. And the way they went about it, it was more like four parallel shows, all running at once. At times during the year, they wondered why they hadn’t just eloped. It would have been so much simpler. And so much more enjoyable. But the drama had stretched out the year. And survived. And from a Balaji production, this show was heading for a Yash Raj finish. Today. This was the big day. Their big day. The day that they had all struggled towards. Today was the day they tied the knot. Today was the day she was going to call it off.