Will you marry me…errr…again??

My Chachu is the most romantic person that I have ever met. I don’t remember the days when he married my Chachi but kisse of those days still lingers in our family talks. They had an arranged marriage but my Chachu being the guy he is/was decided that he would not marry the girl without knowing more about her (apart from looking at the picture taken at some photo studio). So, he did what most girls will consider creepy…lol. My Chachi was the punjaban from Jalandhar and Chachu was UP ke bhaiye-types. So, he told his parents that he is going on a trip for work. Instead, he took his best buddy to Jalandhar and they both would stand behind the tree near Chachi’s house and watch her. There are some unconfirmed reports that he met Chachi in that trip but Chachi have never confirmed the reports and calls it the figment of Chachu’s imagination…lol. Anyways, to cut the long story short, he married my beautiful Chachi but made sure my grandparents never came to know about the trip.

Few days back I was talking to Chachi and we were remembering those joint family days. My Dad being in Army was away in Kashmir and so we lived in a joint family with cousins, uncles, grandparents. Those were fun days as we had so many cousins to play with all the time. I asked Chachi, what she remembered about me (narcissist me) when she got married. She told me how when she got married and made lunch for the first time, she asked me, “Ricky, how is the food?” and I said, “Aap toh itni choti choti rotiyan banate ho, mere mummy toh itne bade bade banate hain” (You make such small small rotis while my Mom makes big big rotis). I was surprised that she never forgot my review of her first roti in our house. I think one reason I could have said that was because I was very close to Chachu and suddenly with Chachi around all his attention diverted towards her. He used to smuggle her every night while we would be playing, to go to movies, restaurants, shopping etc etc. Anyways, with time I became very close to Chachi too esp. after Chachu moved to US. After 6 years of struggle, he moved Chachi and cousins to US but by then Chachi had become my confidant.

This is the 25^th year of my Chachu-Chachi’s anniversary and to celebrate the day, my Chachu decided to re-marry my Chachi, once again. So, all our close relatives (incl. my Pa) in US, India came to US last week. It was an elaborate marriage with 7 days of function, right from Mehndi night to Baarat to Doli, all the functions that they couldn’t enjoy the first time because either it was their first marriage…duh or we couldn’t afford at that time as a middle class family. Mom couldn’t come because she recently had an operation and me and my brother couldn’t join either because of some visa issues. I am now waiting for Chachi to come to Canada and cook some parathas for me and believe me, this time my review will be errrr…the same as she still makes chote chote parathe compared to Mom’s wade wade aloo de parathe…lol

Here’s wishing the couple many such marriages to come with themselves as dulha dulhan of course.

P.S: Recently, when I joked with Chachu about why he is re-marrying he said, “Ab tum bacche toh kuch kar nahin rahee, toh mujhe laga main hee shuravat kar doon phirse”…lol