Preparations for Grihastashrama and the Wedding

Sudha and her parents went back to Bhopal on 31st Aug 1975 and my parents and Sandhya left soon after to KGF.

Then began a long exchange of letters between me and Sudha--- the usual kootchie-cooing stuff.Meanwhile, I started looking for a house.

In October 1975, Kamaraj died and Madras came to a standstill.All hotels were shut and 3 days holidays were declared.I decided to go to KGF and caught the afternoon express train.It was packed with passengers and the weather was extremely hot.The one memory I have was of sweat dripping from the passengers on the upper berth on to me as I was sitting. Yuck!!!

In the same month, Sundari and G.L.N.Ayya had the Grihapravesha of their house in Mysore and I went there. I remember a group of us cousins going to see "Sholay" in a Mysore theatre.

On my return, I moved into a house in Annanagar in Nov 1975.Rent was Rs.250 a month.This was one of the few owners willing to rent a house to a bachelor and that too on my promise that I was engaged and would get married in a couple of months.

In Dec 1975, I paid a visit to Bhopal.Sudha took me to all the important landmarks and introduced me to her friend Sandhya.We all went to see "Uljhan", a Sanjeev Kumar-Sulakshana Pandit starrer. We also paid a visit to Sanchi and saw the stupa there.

Meanwhile, the wedding date was fixed for 2nd Feb 1976 and the wedding hall was Nijaguna Kalyana Mandira on Bull Temple Road in Basavanagudi, Bangalore.The chatra was just being inaugurated and ours was the first wedding to be held there.

BVN asked my father to recommend a suitable caterer and my father suggested Nagaraja Sastry who had catered in Rummy's wedding.

I was in the meantime incurring capital expenditure --- I bought a Godrej cupboard and a cot (both of which remain with us to this day)and 2 chairs.

The wedding was a grand affair.All of my dad's siblings and all of my mom's siblings were present.There was a godly crowd present from my mother-in-law and my father-in-law's side too and most of them ( like the Nadig family)and Gangammanavaru and her family were known to us.Oh yes, this was the other connection that I forgot to mention in my earlier blog.

Gangammanavaru was the sister of NDS Rao who was married to BVN's sister.Gangammanavaru was also the mother of my aunt Kamala who was married to dad's brother Kanteerava.

In this way, there was a good interaction during the wedding between the two families which is usually missing in most weddings.

The wedding over, I returned to KGF with my parents. Sudha and her parents accompanied by her brothers Vinod and Ravi came over to KGF on 5th Feb and left her there.

After a couple of days, we left on our honeymoon to Mysore and Ooty.This remains a sore point with Sudha even today.She still remains disappointed that we did not go to Kashmir for our honeymoon.

We stayed at Hotel Dasaparakash in Mysore and had hardly stirred out of the hotel when we ran into Appaji. He was shocked that we had checked into a hotel ( didn't he know that we were on our honeymoon?) and insisted that we move to his house right away. That evening , Sudha and I went to Brindavan Gardens and took a lot of photos.

Next, we went to Ooty and again stayed in Hotel Dasaprakash.
We went to the lake for boating by ourselves and got stuck in the middle of the lake because of the weeds underneath the boat.It was really funny because there I was in my wedding suit and Sudha in her Conjeevaram saree and dripping with jewellery and we were frantically waving out to get help!!Someone finally came and cut the weeds and we were back to terra firma again.

We returned to KGF and immediately left for Bhopal.We gave the film for developing and found , to our shock and horror, that the photo studio had misplaced the film.The studio owner then made a very generous offer.He said that if we went to the same place and got the photographs a second time, he would develop and print the photos for free.

Incredibly, we did this. We had gone to Rosy's wedding in Mysore in Oct 1976. We again went to Brindavan Gardens, posed in the same places and sent the film to Bhopal and the studio owner kept his word. But I'm getting ahead of my story.

When we came back to Madras towards the end of Feb 1976 to resume our married life, my parents and Sethuram and Seetha accompanied us.

My next blog will detail our life in Madras starting with our first grand dinner on the day we arrived!!