Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad !!!

It's that day again, when I remember, as a child I used to get out of the house on some pretext, order a cake, some flowers and get a great card for my mom-dad, come back and hide it some place safe enough for them to not catch it ! The only day when my dad would actually get up early and bring his own share of flowers too for my mom ;-) and I would just stand there admiring how out of 365 days, it's just this particular one day that my dad actually would "try" listening to my mom's suggestions, requests, pleas and what not - Why ? Oh Well ! The answer lies in the magical word called - L O V E !

The 29th of April, marks the anniversary for my lovely parents, and my Dad being born on the 18th of July, and my Mom the 20th of July in the exact same year, Mr. Shah has an interesting theory of his own to share  about their birthdays being so close, and so whenever someone asks him about how he went about falling in love for the lovely lady of his life, he comes up with an instant remark in his own jovial way mentioning "It's during my initial new-born hospital days and the moments that I spent there, that I had my eyes on Ms. Sheth (at that time) and had made up my mind, if it's gonna be someone, then it's definitely gonna be this cute little girl, lying in the cradle besides me, who is going to be Mrs. Shah as I grow older !"... Friends and family who know them closely enough have their own version of the love story too as I have heard them share bits and pieces, here and there, especially when I am to be advised about how love should be :))))...

But even as someone tries to pursue the answers about how they got to know each other during school days and about how they fell in love from the 8th grade, you would not get a direct answer, but a lot of secretive hidden messages as to how things happened to fall in place (as if it was meant to be) and how one event led to another and eventually they bonded in a life-time intertwined thread of love and warmth.

It's that day of the year today, when Mr. Shah got married to Ms. Sheth and started their life-long journey of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, success and failures, hand-in-hand, vowing to stand by each other, come what may, and facing the surprises of life together, embraced in the love for each other - 29th of April was when my mom and dad got married aspiring to live happily ever after !

So this post goes to congratulate Mom-Dad on their 31st marriage anniversary, wishing them lots of love for many many many more years to come ! 

Wishing you a very Happy Marriage Anniversary Mom-Dad ! 
May God bless you with lots of love and even more close bonding with each other ! 

Cheers
Samy

(PS: Till date I still do not know who actually proposed whom and there has been no clear indication from either Mom or Dad, but one thing for sure is that whenever this topic is brought up I witness that sparkle in both their eyes and with a little bit of shyness and slyness they both exchange certain glances, smile, and just move on ... LoL ;-) )

Pre-Wedding Celebrations - A Week to Reminisce !!!

A trip back home, to India, every year scripts a lot of fond memories to be cherished for years to come. Whether it would be the first trip back home as a student, or the trip to one's birth place with your own hard earned money, a trip to hunt for your soul partner, a trip as an engaged couple embracing the much talked about social and family structure, or a trip like this year to put a seal to your bachelorhood and mail it off to a distant land from where it can never return back and thus hand yourself the official status of being married and therefore entering an entirely new, exciting, eventful new phase of life, for the rest of your life !!!

Yes, it was a special trip this year, for an occasion which encompassed not only the mere celebrations involved in it, but above all the warm welcome of a new member into our family. 11th of December, would be celebrated every year as our Wedding Anniversary, as I, and Dipali got married on this auspicious day to be entangled, intertwined and to be held together into a life long bond of love, passion, emotions, laughter, little quarrels and above all starting our own journey hand-in-hand vowing never to be apart in happiness or sorrow.

The marriage was held in our home city Ahmedabad, as relatives, friends and family members graced the occasion with their warm presence and zeal to get me and Dipali through to our wedding with pleasant memories to reminisce. Dipali and her parents already had started the preparations from Oct end as they settled down slowly in Ahmedabad. I took a flight a month later to join my parents and family members who had already been playing a 2-3 month battle with various vendors, caterers, decorators and a whole bunch of an entirely different crew of people.

The week long celebrations started with an offering to the God, wherein a Snatra Puja was held for the first time on the premises of our home. With all the relatives being treated to awesome home cooked food all week long, both for lunch and dinner in the compound of my home, it was going to be a delicacy saga for me especially that I love to try various dishes. Some of the menus were hand picked by me, my mom or some other on site demands. It was fun to sit amongst family members and have a round table lunch or dinner in the compound downstairs.

Champanivas, my home, was whitewashed and decorated from top till the bottom, the entire place was lightened up with powerful lights, the decor was done personally by my Bhabhis, Cousins and other relatives who played a significant role in giving the most ethnic, traditional look to the entire place. One piece that stood out was the entire cloth wall that was hand painted by them to display the indian traditional designs. Another master piece of decoration that they did was on the day of the Pre-Wedding Dinner Party on 8th Dec, held at our place, wherein they decorated the entire entrance with Designer Pots, Flowers, Water Colors and Lamps (Divas) which truly gave a warm welcome to all the guests.

Click Here for Pics

The Pre-Wedding Dinner party was the first step towards getting back in touch with almost all the relatives, elders, friends, family and lot of other new faces. Ghazals from a singer who has sung in almost all such marriage occasions in our family were soothing to the ears, as was the Upper Crust food to the greedy throat of mine. To add to it, Dipali was forced to sing along with the live music and I was supposed to be her so called moral support lol. She managed a few songs nicely and then the mood turned to some foot tapping numbers as Dipali's family and mine got together to dance to some tunes.

Next day there was a Mehndi session where in all the chicas of my side got together, with their ages ranging from a 6-8 year old to about someone in their fifties, got some colorful artistic designs done on their hands. I was quite busy too. Not in the Mehndi session, but in getting something prepared for the night to come.

As the evening flew by, another fun event that was to take palce was that of the Karaoke + Cocktail as the night progressed. This was held on the terrace and the Karaoke thing got my dad's friends and his cousins so much involved that at the end they were quite literally fighting to give their vocal cords a shot at the singing fame. Friends came by to have their own shots (definitely not at singing) but to clink the glasses and celebrate my end of bachelorhood LoL :) ... I was on the best of my behavior and under restricted quantity of alcohol consumption LoL !!! (I know most of you won't believe me, and as such Dipali does not read my Blog so does not matter :P)

Well, this was just a brief account of some pre-wedding celebrations that took place and I think I might as well stop here ... The only reason that I opted to pen down my experience was because, I think I will get married only once lol and so this was going to be my first and last time, which made me think that I had to blog about my own marriage :) :) :) Btw, these photographs are random pics taken by me through my own SLR :) :) :) !!! Please don't even take a guess as to how many in total I took ...

So then, Stay tuned as I prepare my blog post for my wedding day experience and the reception that followed after the marriage...

Cheers
Samy ...