Anant's Marriage Trip to Nagpur...

Around 3pm, 28th April this year - we were at Anish's place grouping to start for Nagpur to attend Anant's marriage.

After doing a lot of 'who is in, who is out' on Friday, 27th April, eight people decided they might start the next morning. Seven did. The plan was to start by 11, but its so boring to go as per the plan. One by one, we gathered at Anish's place. Anish, Naseer, Suvarchala, Rahul, Santosh, Sagar and me. Sagar got some biryani packed from Paradise for those who did not have lunch. The lime juice made by Anish's mom was just wonderful(But I had just 3 glasses!).

But even more wonderful were the stories of Anish's childhood. We should visit Anish's place somtime when he's not around, will get to know many interesting things! Finally, we started at 3pm from Anish's place in two cars(Anish's WagonR and Sagar's 'Impossible is nothing' Santro). Sagar, Naseer, Rahul and me in Sagar's car and the other three in Anish's.

Moving through the city traffic was slow, but we soon hit the highway and picked up some speed. Sagar kept wondering how people travel for 10-12 hrs in a car. He was slowly realising how! We discussed everything under the sun and even the sun! It was quite an enriching experience - proving the earth is a sphere, discussing rotation and atmosphere, gravity and all the 'other' stuff(I better not mention everything here!).


The road for fun...


Saga, me, Naseer n Rahul in Impossible in Nothing Santro...


Thats Saga, fixing a punture in the tyre.


Beautiful sunset on the way!


Thats me, the new age Tarzan!

After 2 hrs of driving, we stopped at a dhaba to stretch a bit. Had tea, got Santro's spare tyre fixed. I, for the first time, saw armed plainclothed policemen camping at a dhaba(Naxal affected area!). It was quite a hi-tech dhaba for a small village!

Next stop was at Nirmal for dinner. The udupi hotel was a pretty decent place with decent enough food. As always, we troubled the waiter by ordering a lot more than he was expecting and finishing it in no time. Around 9, we started from Nirmal and the 'discussions' continued. Sagar's inclination towards democracy had Rahul almost jumping out of the car but with time Rahul gathered enough support from Naseer and me. Sagar had to give in and we stayed onboard.

A break in between allowing Anish's car to catch up with ours and a li'l stretch routine and we were back on track again. The ghat sections were exciting with Sagar realising a turn a triffle late at 90Kmph. We ended up right in front of a truck coming in the opposite direction. Luckily it was uphill for the truck and it was very slow. We survived!

With stops at Adilabad and a couple of more stops. Having tea and the lollipops we picked up from Nirmal we reached Nagpur around 2:30am.


Having tea on the way in the night...

Anant's cousins picked us up and took us to the place where the function was to take place. 3am, we need to get some sleep to be ready for the marriage functions starting at 9. One good thing about long road journeys, as soon as you find a place to sleep you sleep merrily!


Meeting Anant @ 3 AM in the morning!

Everybody got ready by 9:30am. With temperatures as high as 45 Celsius, more than a couple of people were willing to stay back and guard the bags. But as soon as the baraat started for the temple all of us were out on the road leading it. We danced more than anybody else!(Anant might have told everyone - "these are NOT my team mates, they are professional dancers from Hyd"). Me, Sagar and Anish(you read the last name perfectly fine) were at their best throughout the 45 mins trip!


Dancing on the streets of Nagpur with 45 C!


The groom also wanted to dance...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yszIa4zvcH0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qydjgNI1C7g
We got some videos too...

All exhausted with the heat we went to our room to take a li'l break(read to change into something else or atleast dry up the shirts a bit - it was hot!). By the time we were down the ceremony was done and with lot of people in queue to bless the couple, we thought we could congratulate Anant better after having something and headed straight to . The food was amazing! I found a new combination of eating Salads dipped in Ice-Cream :D !Congratulated Anant!




Thats the cute couple!


All of us with the couple!


Mere dhin kab ayega?

Rested for a while and then packed our bags for the journey back. Couldn't lay our hands on Nagpur oranges but we were happy with one more round of food. We started back at around 4pm from Nagpur. Anant was frantically running around changing costumes for every ritual. God! it takes a lot to get married!

Return journey was quicker. A couple of stops before a long dinner at A1 Reliance dhaba somewhere around Adilabad, I have to tell u that the dhaba is amazing and a couple of stops after it. People shuffling around in cars bringing in newer perspectives to the interesting discussions, sleeping in turns, 12 hrs was not a long drive. We reached Hyderabad around 4am in the morning. It was pleasure attending Anant's marriage and it looks we will be having many more similar trips in the next year or so!

PS: Sagar *never* uses high beam on highways and he *always* misses the sign boards