Chapter 8 :- At Meera's Home.

It's the third week of December. I have to attend my college only three days this week because I have to go two days earlier to Meera's wedding.

So after attending my college I went home and in the evening I reached a saloon to get my waxing and haircut done.

After returning from the salon, the whole night passed with the excitement of tomorrow.

Today we got up early in the morning. I'm dressed up in a red Kurti and white trousers and I let my hair open and do eyeliner to my eyes and put lip gloss on my lips.

We reached Meera's home around 10:00 Am.

Her home is three hours away from mine. We go there by travelling in our own car. Her home is in the villages and when we reached there I saw the way to her home was decorated with Mandapa and that from the one kilometre away from her home.

Her home has a huge gate in the entrance and its white colour bungalow has a huge garden on one side and on another side a big swimming pool. 

House was full of relatives and workers were running from here to there to do their duties. House is beautiful from the inside too. House has huge rooms and furniture was in royal style. In the Hall two long swords were hanging on the wall. 

When I entered the room first I met my aunt and uncle. After that, I met Meera. She has worn a pink Kurti which has a Kachhi design and white trousers and she let her hair open. She looks gorgeous in her simple look also.

When I saw her we just hugged for a long time. Sometimes no words are needed, only your actions are enough to show your feelings. After meeting everyone we both found little time to talk and we talked about every happy moment of our childhood and how we used to play together and even shared about every funny talk that no one understood except us. 

In my family, she is someone whom I look up to. I share my secrets with her. She is my advisor, secret keeper, fashion guide, and supporter. She is the best combination of friend and sister I could ever get. Many times our likes and dislikes are the same. 

She is the first one to get admission in medicine from our family and she helped me during my entrance exam.

On vacation, we did late-night talks and learned to cook together. 

From playing games together and watching movies together we grow up discussing our future plans. 

Even now we also talk about medicine, movies and music. When we start talking, time passes quickly.

She told me how she has a mix of all kinds of emotion, how much she is excited about her own wedding, and how much she felt sad about leaving her own house and feelings of anxiety for going to a completely different family. She told me that in this situation her Groom is helping her to make her comfortable. 

She tells me that this is gonna change her life but still at the same time it makes her excited only because of the love of her groom.

We talk for a while after that, both get busy packing. At night my other cousins came with their families and the whole house became full of people.

The house is big and it's decorated with light which looks beautiful. All Women gather in a group seat in the house and start singing in the group song which is particularly sung in the marriage, in particular, Gujarati weddings of our society. It's called Lagna-geet in the Gujarati language. We can say a Wedding song in English.

After that, we do the Garba ( A Gujarati Folk dance which is a must in all happy moments of Gujarati families). 

After Garba, Ghoomar ( Rajasthani folk dance) is also performed by us and then we dance to Bollywood songs. We stopped at twelve in the night not because we got tired, our excitement still wanted us to keep dancing, but when the elderly told us to sleep and save our excitement for the Sangeet ceremony or we can say for the Garba night so we stopped dancing.

After sleeping late at night I wake up late in the morning. And then I got busy with Meera and then the first ceremony starts a 'Mehndi ceremony '

I love the simple but good looking design of mehndi so I instruct the girl who is doing mehndi with my hand to do it the way I want. The house becomes full of women and all are busy with their hands for the mehndi designed by another elder women group and then they get busy in singing particular Gujarati wedding songs which are sung in our society. 

Outside the house, all the men including my father, brothers, and uncle were busy talking with each other. Meera is looking happy and beautiful in her green coloured choli. I wear a dark green Kurti and white trousers. Let my hair put in a bun so it does not disturb me while my hands get busy in mehndi. My mother and other aunties also looked beautiful in colourful bandhani saree. 

After an hour we all were done with mehndi except Meera because the bride's Mehndi took a longer time than others so I gave her company with my other sisters. When her mehndi got done with mehndi outside the house the beautiful Mandap was decorated and the whole house was decorated with flowers and light and food was ready. We take a seat on the chair. Our hands were designed with mehndi so my father is the one to feed me food in my mouth with love and brother feeds food to my mother. My uncle feeds food to Meera.

At night we again do the Garba on the beat of the music, Ghoomar, and lastly, dance on the Bollywood songs. Again today we also stopped at twelve in the night. We are lucky that the wedding is held in the village so we don't need to bother about noise at night but still we stop at twelve because tomorrow is going to be full of rituals of a wedding.