My Best Friend’s Wedding (Part 1)

(Hi Guys, I guess it’s time for a short sweet story. A big thank you to my friend Poorvaja, who has helped me edit this story. Happy reading folks and please do post you comments. They motivate story writers a lot!! :) )

You look awesome.

A little appreciation was overdue as I finished applying the last bit of gel onto my curly hair. It was a big day.. The day I had been waiting for years now.

Should I really go there? Will they accept me? The sweet tune of Hosanna song interrupted my thoughts. It was my mobile ringing and on the call was my best friend.

“Mr. Vinoth Nagarajan?” the caller spoke with a sense of urgency.

“Yes sir?”

“The marriage will not happen without you boss” spoke a really serious voice. I bet he was joking.

“I know that, mate” I laughed slightly “and I’d be coming there soon to make sure you have the best time of your life,” I replied.

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As stood admiring the beautifully decorated thermacoal board adorning the name of my best friend and his fiancé.

Nothing will remain the same after a couple of hours.

It is my best friend’s wedding today. It is not everyday that you get a friend like Arun.. We have been the best of pals ever since ages. We first met in our Pre-KG class and from then on there has been no looking back

As time passed, things changed but initially we both hadn’t spoken to each other for nearly 2 years and it was only when Ie had been able to help him fight two bullies in class that we got talking. We ate, played, studied together and perhaps spent most of the day together. I still remember the day he’d walked out of the cricket team just because his best friend, I, wasn’t selected.

Oh! Those good ‘ol days! Where have those days gone? Time passes so quickly.

I knew in my heart of hearts that he was a true sportsman and didn’t want to stop him but he had decided that he either played with me on the field or stood on the boundary along with me doing nothing and finally he played with me in the team.

Whether it was our first fag or the ragging of juniors in college, we always were together. We spent almost all of our times together; good or bad! And bad meant standing outside our sottai princi’s office for our stupid pranks! It makes me laugh even today when I think of those crazy days! We were a team! Bros for life!

But the tides were changing slowly and little did we know that our lives would never be the same. As much as I adored him, I realized that from that eventful day, a girl would own him as much as I do.

“Dei Mama..” came a sharp voice.

I turned to see Arun draped in his vaeshti with its edges being embroidered in gold and an impeccable white silk shirt, he walked with great difficulty holding all the pieces of his traditional attire together.

“Macha.. Congrats da” I gave him a tight hug.

“Stupid fellow” he gently shouted.

I looked at him surprised.

“How long do I have to wait for you man? And why be this formal? You should have been here two hours before and beside me. You are my best friend and you are forgetting that” he spoke strengthening the bonds of our friendship.

He took my hand authoritatively and led me through the staring guests in the marriage hall.

“You must meet her. She would be very happy to meet you.” He spoke and blushed at the mention of his fiancé.

“Machi.. ippovae blushing aa” I tried to tease him.

“He he.. Macha, I think she’s getting ready. We’d have to wait for ten minutes” he spoke after enquiring from one of her aunts.

“No probs dude. I guess they are calling you on the manamedai. I will wait for you here dude”

“You better be with me man” he spoke.

“Macha, I am more comfortable here da”, I lied. I actually felt very uncomfortable standing with his relatives. His mom and dad must be damn angry with me!!

I picked up an orange juice can from counter that had a variety of different flavored juices stacked together in the corner of the hall. Both of us liked the Orange juice and it was our favorite until beer took over.

As I turned around, I could see some of Arun’s relatives was pointing their fingers at me and talking in hushed tones. Perhaps I deserve much better than this talk behind my back.

I overheard the conversation of a teenaged girl and a boy talking just behind me.

“Give me your hand. I know astrology and I will tell you how many marks you will get in your board exam” spoke the boy invitingly.

The girl smiled and shook her head.

“IDIOT”, came that spicy word from her mouth.

She got up and walked off to join her friends sitting little faraway and the boy moved on to the next girl sitting besides hoping for some better luck this time.

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IDIOT. That sure struck a chord from the past….

My eyes popped out in sheer amazement perhaps feeling the stupidity of Arun for the first time in our friendship.

Love was not just blind but deaf too.

“Macha..” Arun shook me.

“Are you sure she told you that?” I gave him a quizzing look.

“Macha, she really did!”

“She called you an idiot and you are smiling” I spoke even more puzzled.

“He he.. those are the first love words dude. You won’t understand” he spoke slightly shaking his head.

I didn’t understand love but I did know that Mridula disliked him from the bottom of her heart.

“Dude, we have to study for our quarterly exams man. The 12th classes are pissing me off a lot” I spoke trying to change the topic, but Arun was in his own world.

Things had changed.. a lot after she came into his life..

Three months ago both of us saw a petite, fair girl walk past us as we sat on the small wall near the assembly hall, rating all the girls passing by. A single glance of Mridula was enough to make Arun go crazy.

I really didn’t know what he saw in her but the moment he’d see her, he’d started following from one class to another and so did I along with him. I’d sometimes thought of him as a horse with blinders on!

Somehow the days’ conversations meandered along what color hair clip Mridula
Wore or what she brought for lunch or what perfume she wore and Arun, without any guesses, did most of the talking about the obvious.

“Macha.. I think I love her” he spoke after a long thought during our lunch break.
“What?” I blurted out with half the food inside my mouth.

“Yes macha.. I love her”

Infactuation. Pure infactuation..

I knew it but I didn’t have the guts to darken his dreams. Perhaps I should have.. perhaps I could have stopped everything.. all the bad things.

“Macha..” I spoke trying to collect my thoughts on how to try and make him understand. “We don’t know anything about her”

“Name: Mridula Shankaran, Address: 4th cross street, KK Nagar, Dad’s Name: Shankaran working in ONGC and mother’s name: Gowri, she is a house-wife. She is the only daughter loves drawing and listening to music and is a state champion in Chess. She had earlier studied in Vidya Mandir and she has joined just now in our school”

“Whoa!! Where did you get all this information from?” I nearly choked.

Arun beamed with pride. His detective work had really thrown me off track. “I did tell you that I had been visiting a temple a lot lately, right?”

I understood the rest of the story. For the first time I had been fooled by my best friend.

The more Arun tried to follow her, the more she would run away and I would bear with all the crap he talked about all the very more.

But all that changed one day. As we stood near our favorite hangout place counting the beautiful girls, and Mridula showed up from nowhere.

She gently smiled and opened the history book she held in her hands. She took out a beautifully well preserved peacock feather and handed it to him. He took it gently and slid it into his shirt pocket.

They both stared into each other for a few seconds.. I almost felt like I was invisible to the two of them.

She smiled and started walking inside the school. He had started to follow her, but I quickly caught hold of him. I wanted to know what the heck was happening. And now!

After that magnetic presence, leaving Arun alone, I gathered all my thoughts wondering what could have happened in a single day.. or I should say night.

“Macha.. You kissed her?” I blurted out.

“What?” a sharp shooting glance from him told me that I was completely wrong.

“Then.. how.. did.. she..” I shook my head.

“Secret dude.. Anyways you never liked her. So I guess it’s ok if you didn’t know” he laughingly teased, as he started walking towards the assembly hall.

“Macha.. macha.. please da.. sollu..” I followed him pleading all the way to the assembly hall.

As the princi hushed us all into silence, my head spun out the various combinations that could have happened. Not a kiss.. hmm.. Perhaps a big present.. to her mom.. nah.. he is not that stupid.. perhaps.. perhaps.. oh.. he did that.. oh my..

As I walked close to my best friend on the way to our class, it dawned on me how he had done it.

“Chess?” I asked him.

“Macha.. you are my best friend always” he hugged with ferocious intensity that all our classmates eyed us as we proceeded inside the class.

Simon was our computer science teacher and he was always a pain in the ass. He never let us talk in his period.

I tore out a piece of paper and wrote ‘How?’

He flipped it back and wrote ‘You know I won the district championship in chess. I knew that my best way to get her was to ask her to duel in a game of chess. Told her that if I won she has to love me or I would not disturb her and also polish her shoes that day. Made it into a game of best of three!! Knew I would lose, but it still gave me a chance to speak to her’

I tore one more piece of paper.. this was getting interesting.. ‘Polish her shoes?? CRAZY.. So she accepted the challenge and you won?’

‘I wish I did man. I lost the first game badly that she asked me if I knew how to polish shoes. I still continued with the second game and as luck would have it she played really bad and I won by the scrap of it’

‘A win!! Wow ‘and did you win the last game?’

‘I.. wanted to.. but seeing how tensed and pathetic she looked on playing with her losing position, I lost to her, deliberately’

Adra sakka..

As Simon made his way out of the class, I hugged Arun. He had finally found his life partner.. Or had he??

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It had been 2 days since I last spoke to him. As I picked up my phone and dialed for the 10th time.. I hoped I didn’t get a busy caller tone now…

“Hello macha..” I spoke in a hurry apparently happy to finally get the connection going.

“Hi Vinoth, this is Arun’s father. How are you doing son?”

“Oh.. hi uncle.. am fine.. is Arun there?”

“He has just left somewhere.. was on the phone for a long time.. now he is gone.. are you guys studying well for your half-yearly exams?”

“Yes.. yes uncle. I think Arun must have started to my home only. I will call you later.”

Where the hell was Arun? Perhaps for the first time I didn’t know where he was!!

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“Dei macha.. stop crying da?” I tried to hug Arun and console him. Did he deserve all this. Perhaps he did.. And now he is alone and crying in the middle of the night under the faint light emanating from the fluorescent lamps at our street corner.

He pushed me away and started running. I ran after him and caught up with him near the splattered garbage cans and dragged him to a stop.

“Dude, you cannot run away from your problems man. Tell me what happened?” I asked.

“They know everything about me and Mridula.”

“Who?”

“Both our parents. Mridula’s father had met my parents and told them that the next time I try to meet her, they will call the police. My dad beat me up and my mom’s threatening to commit suicide.” he sobbed.

I knew the eventual problem of love but didn’t know it would happen so fast for him. “Macha.. relax.. Everything will be alright. Did you speak to her about this?”

“She wouldn’t even speak to me,” and burst out crying once again.

Oh my god!! Why the hell should this happen to my Best Friend. Perhaps girls should never be trusted at all!!


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A few weeks later, things started slowly returning to normalcy. Both of them never spoke to each other and I too didn’t try patching them up for I thought it would do a world of good to both of them.

But then as all love stories go, they strike you when you are least prepared for it.

It was on one fine Friday morning that we were sitting in Simon’s class and the whole class was silent.

“Macha, will you give your life for me?” he whispered.

“What?? Why?” I answered quite shocked.

“Will you or will you not?” he whispered fiercely.

“Macha, anyday” I spoke with re-affirmed passion.

“Ok listen. Mridula and I have planned to..” the next few words would change all our lives, either for the better or for the extreme worse!!!

NEXT PART