Finally the great day arrived. The hotel lobby was teaming with suit clad men and Sado clad women in their finest jewellery. The ball room was adorned with the finest things. The drapery was velvet , ribbons in pastel colors and center piece in red and white. A band in the corner played Santana loud enough to crackup the Kuwait towers.
I watched as the couple was led in to the hall. They were all smiles but I could feel the nervous cramps creeping up their stomach. Still they were a beautiful couple. They had started life from ground zero and were now headed for marriage ville ! The emcee did his usual homage, praising the couple and all the beautiful people around them. He also cracked a couple of jokes which he must have thought were funny. My heart sunk a little bit realizing that more than half the crowd in that hall did not understand what this ?highly educated man in suit? was telling them. Neither did Godwin and Reshma. Only their smiling faces did not show it.
It was a great day for them, their parents and relatives who were also smiling. The cake was cut amid the dazzle of flashlights, confetti and the band playing congratulations. Then toast master showered the couple with the choicest blessings, using almost all the superlatives borrowed from the oxford dictionary. His session went on till the smile on the couple?s face wore off and their knees started hurting. And then it was time for the biggest bloodless sacrifice of the day. Godwin would reply the toast in English. He had received ?vidhya dhan? from one of Reshma?s friends for the past seven days and there he stood, on the dais, glass of champagne in one hand, mike in the other. ?Ladies and gentlemen? he started with a big smile. And then I do not have a clear picture of what happened next as I was just looking down at the marble. From what I could make out, he stuttered, cleared his throat, tried to open his mouth and tried in vain to remember the next few words. Whether the teacher was bad or Godwin had not done his home work properly, the lesson did not arrive. He stood there for a never ending one minute, like a school boy with trousers pulled down in front of the school assembly, hoping the ground beneath him would open up and swallow him then and there. Was it not for the timely rescue by the emcee, Godwin would have possibly run away from that hall, never looking back and never wanting to marry. Well, the band and the emcee were very quick in lifting the gloom and the partying went ahead. But the torture wasn?t over.
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…we are nobody in this big world. A world of money and people. We do not prove ourselves everyday…
Soon the floor was cleared for the couple?s great waltz. They came hand in hand, a charming couple and took their first steps into togetherness. It was sheer terror when Godwin and Reshma switched sides and started dancing in the opposite direction. They were so tense and confused for they were not sure whether what they were doing was correct or wrong. Again they had forgotten their lessons!
It is four years now since Godwin and Reshma are married. They have a kid and preparing for the next one. One day while flirting around Salhiya towers I bumped into Godwin. His scalp was peaping through the thin hairline and he had lost pounds. For a hundredth time he apologized to me for not settling my dues, despite my telling him it was okay I had not given him any loan. Then he started narrating his sad tales. He had run into debt holding his daughter?s christening party! He had still not cleared the debt from his wedding bash, even though he had slogged for four years. What made him fall into this trap everytime? I querried him and his answer was very diplomatic. ?You see we are nobody in this big world. A world of money and people. We do not prove ourselves everyday but we get occasions like this, once in a life time to show that we are something. I would rather be a king for a day and beg for the rest of my life than die unknown.? That was simple logic.
Over the years Reshma had induced her mode of thinking on Godwin. Four years ago, I had overheard from the gossip machines that Reshma had modelled her wedding around Shirley?s who had the money to spend. This time she must have seen somebody?s christening bash, so here they were paying for someone else?s sins. On the way out, I met many many young people, bargaining with the sellers. They all looked like one big Godwin and Reshma, sweating it out hard, to be something for atleast one day. To be a king and queen for one day, and whatever else for the rest of their lives.
Author: Remy DSouza- Kuwait
