Episode - The wedding
Hello readers! The entire wedding got too long to write in a single episode, so I have made divided it into two parts.
The wedding date was set to January 7th, 1956 in Tirupati. Here is the wedding invitation.
Grandpa said he attended his wedding during the holidays of his college, the Sankranti holidays. "I told no one in the college about my marriage. Only the relatives and villagers knew. We were almost 50 people in total from our side who went to Tirupati in the train."
There is a custom of gifting the groom's family with money and grandpa said he asked for Rs. 4200/-. Odd number that! Why? I asked him. "It was for the train tickets, to and fro, for all the 50 members and to buy gifts for them, clothes, etc. And also to buy some jewelry for my mother and my soon-to-be wife. I always wanted to buy some gold for my mother. She had lots of it but we lost everything during the freedom struggle. You remember that my father was a part of it?" Grandpa asked. I nodded a yes. He continued, "I was still studying but wanted my mother to have some jewelry on her for my wedding. So I brought identical necklaces for both them."
The wedding venue grandpa tells me was in Allevelu mangapuram; the place of Goddess Padmavati's temple. Back then the corruption levels weren't so high and the places were maintained neat and clean. The rooms were already rented and the arrangements made by the bride's family. It was then just before the wedding that grandpa's parents and relatives saw grandma. The wedding was completely a traditional one. I asked if they enjoyed their wedding and they tell me, "We didn't know we were supposed to enjoy it." But yeah, it was fun, I think." grandpa added and grandma snorted...
Part II in the next episode. Till then, be happy, be good...
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