Well, wifey has changed jobs and is now also my colleague. She is getting settled in pretty nicely. It doesn’t feel as odd as we expected it – being colleagues and all that. :-)

This means that we travel to work together too. Looks like it’s time to buy a car but we cannot commit to it until we figure our finances. Our apartment’s possession is on the anvil, although there are no hard and fast dates. Possession would require quite a large sum of money for registration, interiors and all other "new home" expenses. Until we get a clear idea of the hole that’s gonna burn, there’s no way we can take on the additional liability of a car.

Things will happen when they need to, so I am not too worried. :-)

I should introduce you to our new home that’s still under construction. I booked an apartment around February ‘06 under a pre-launch offer in SJR Verity, Off Sarjapura Road. The expected date of completion was March ‘08 and as seems usual with builders in India, the hand-over has now been pushed back to May or June ‘08. Some of the pix are here.

The 80:20 rule is in play here. Now that the builder has more than 80% of our money with him, the work has slowed down to a crawl. The site does not show much progress though the project manager claims that everything is on track and hand-over will be in June ‘08 and no later. I don’t trust his words though. We have been hounded by SJR Group’s miscommunication many a times and the management makes it quite obvious that they are only after our money. Ask them for a simple modification and they come back with a price quote that is out of the world.

We were called in for the tile selection a couple of weeks back. The choice was quite ordinary and given no other option we chose what we thought were the best. We did consider getting our own tiles done but the builder will fit them only after possession and that would mean some more time wasted before we get to do the interiors. Interiors will be a big chunk of work. Getting the kitchen in shape, building wardrobes and what not. We have already begun scouting around for modular kitchens and wardrobes, at least to get an idea of what is available in the market and probably find out how big a hole our pockets will sustain. :) This weekend, one of the interiors guys will visit our flat to get the measurements and do some preliminary designs and estimates. It’s too early but we thought it better to start early rather than rush around later.

We will keep you posted on how things progress.

Finally, after loads and loads of ideas, reworks, etc., the wedding site is about to get completed. There are a few more things that need to go in and will happen gradually (r’ber the 80:20 rule). I have already begun sending out the link to my friends, who have begun to lose their patience :), one by one.

It’s still WIP and we will put up the links here once we get everything together.

 Update: http://wedding.preethibijesh.com

I missed to write about this incident that took place at the registrar’s office where we went to get the marriage certificate. The day after our wedding, we went to the Tambaram registrar’s office for this purpose. It was a dingy old place with lots of lost looking people wandering around with papers in hand, like any other govt. office, where they make you run from one desk to another. We asked one person to find out where we can get the registration form from. To our surprise, he kept down the newspaper that he was seriously immersed in, got up and led my dad to the place where we’d to obtain the application. Not jus this, he got the form and proceeded to help us fill the details. We thought that he’s someone working in the office and were really impressed by this kind of service. He filled up the form which was too simple and straight forward that even a 12 yr old kid to fill, nevertheless we let him fill as he had a good handwriting. And then made all of us sign on it and lol! in jus 10 minutes, all was done (so we thought). I was starting to think over my view about govt offices. They fast and prompt!!!

Then he handed the form back to my dad and said, go straight up – turn left, and give it to the clerk there, he will process this for you. You will have to pay the registration fee there and you’ve to pay me Rs.150!!!! Now wait, what is this 150 for?? That’s his charge of filling the form for us illiterate folks! We got irritated for being taken for a ride like this. For that he said the standard dialogue "This is how this works sir!" Someone we managed to get away by paying some 60-70 bucks to him! Then we realized that there are many more fellows like him who make a living by just ‘filling-the-forms’. But 150 bucks??????

Next we went up to this office where everything is in a mess. No orderliness… no name plates to identify who does what. We spend five minutes asking around where to hand over the papers. The clerk there collects Rs.400/- as fee and asks us to wait to be called. We’d no idea about the charges for these but then marriage certificate is an important doc, so this sounded nominal. Anyway, after waiting for 45 mins or so, we don’t get called. Meanwhile my dad and aunt also go about signing as witness to another couple who’d come without anyone to sign for witness. When we got tired of waiting, my uncle who works for the Income tax dept thought it’s about time to use some influence (very important in govt offices). Going over to the asst. registrar’s desk and introducing himself he started saying in his funny broken Tamil how he’d come on an official trip and he’s getting delayed here. After that conversation we were calling in immediately and things moved fast. We’d to sign in big register that had same details as in the application.

They asked us to come and collect the marriage certificate a week after. After we came down from the office, dad remembered that we need to collect the receipt for the money paid so that we can bring it when we come to collect the certificate. He went and came back with the receipt. This was a piece of paper carelessly torn from a sheet. It had a rubber stamp in the centre and underneath it the following was hand written in pen…

Application charge : Rs.5/-
Printing charges (3 copies) : Rs.6 /-
Received Rs.11/- only.
And we’d paid Rs.400 (plus Rs.60). Now, that’s our government office!!!!

Finally last weekend, after long wait we shifted to this new apartment in J.P Nagar 7^th Phase. Biju wanted to move to a new house so that I can cut down the travel time to office. Now, it’s altogether a different thing that I still board my bus from the same bus-stop, so the only savings in time is 5 minutes! It used to take 15 mins to come to bus stop from the prev house n now its only 5 mins. We couldn’t find a nice house around BTM, the area that is the closest to both our offices and ’in-the-city’ too. The best we could get was this and except for my travel to office, everything else is good about the place

This is a nice n big (for 2) house except for its bathrooms n kitchen, which were stingily built. If one bathroom has a pillar eating 1/4^th of the area, leaving it in a C-shape; the other has the western closet set on a high setting with no room to keep your feet, so your legs kinda hover in air!!!!! We also went and got some nice curtains for the house – sunset yellow color, to match the walls. And they look really good, esp. in the morning when the sunlight peers through the French windows in the hall. The house owner was very generously let behind his double bed, dining table, diwan cot, coffee table (broken, but if we can get it fixed) and the aqua guard etc for us to use. Maybe it was not magnanimity but the fact that in spite of having 2-3 other flats in Bangalore, he had no place to move these stuff. But no complaints from our side, as we can postpone buying this till we shift to our own flat next yr

Kitchen’s little small… coming to think of it, back at home my mom has a kitchen which is bigger than my bedroom!!! I really envy her on that point at least. Another good point about this is that we’ve a good restaurant next door and they serve good food too, though a bit expensive.

We’re still in the process of setting it all. We\’re yet to unpack some of our luggage and also, buy more things for the house. Will update the pics once house is all geared up…

I am married now – “Family man” as people tend to call it.
 
As the wedding was nearing, everyone around me seemed to have questions. “How do you feel?” was unsurprisingly the most common. Aaj Tak should be quite proud of that :) Following closely was the question – “How much has your phone bill risen?”. The answer I had to both these questions was “Same as it used to be.” One of my colleagues said how his phone bill had risen to 15K after engagement – that was, of course, before the days of the mobile phone and 1 Re. STD calls.
 
Now the question is “How’s married life?”. I have, unashamedly, asked this question of many many folks. Little did I realize that one day I would at the receiving end of this seemingly unanswerable question. How then does it really feel – the status change from single/committed to married? Strangely, the change appears to have been natural and not upheaving. It is as if you get eased into the new phase without any sudden pushes or such.
 
I am spending more time shopping stuff for the house. Not shopping really, just waiting around for the lady to decide what she needs. ;) This, perhaps, is a temporary thing. I hope to move to a weekly or fortnightly shopping ritual. Shifting the house is still pending and that’s gonna exhaust this weekend for us.
 
It’s fun sharing the house with someone. I have been so used to living alone that I had forgotten that company can be fun too and with her for company I am not complaining at all. :)
 
We are yet to figure out our financial position, etc. There are a lot of such “grown-up” stuff to do and we should get around to all that sooner than later.
 
People around me seem to have a standard comment – “This guy hasn’t changed at all.” :-/ Now how in the world am I supposed to change? :-( Any ideas anybody?

So here I am, in Bangalore. Married. Life’s good… ok, it’s rocking!!!My impression on b’lore hasn’t changed much… I don’t like the place much, Chennai was so much better. Now, I’m not getting into any comparisons here but still I love my dear old Chennai. B’lore looks too crowded and we’re always struck in traffic – any road, any time. But Biju says it’s cos I haven’t been to the crowded places in Chennai. Maybe he’s right cos in last 12 yrs in Chennai (OMG!!! That’s indeed a long time) I’d lived in the suburbs, where life was calm and quite, no traffic (ok, not much traffic).

\r\n \r\nEvery shop is a supermarket here, no chotta shops here… Everything is big, flashy n urban. So, shopping is indeed fun. Yeah I’m including the grocery and provision shopping too. And no matter how much I buy, I always feel there’s something missing in kitchen. There are lots of eateries around, so many places near your house that actually you think twice before cooking a meal. But I must tell you, that I’ve been cooking for the last 2 weeks…. Cooking, pretty good food in fact (ok!!! Biju says it too and I don’t threaten him to say that). Coming to married life… hmmm…. I’m loving it I must say :-) Yes, I did cry (not literally) like Monica “I am gonna live with a boy….” But it’s smooth, I guess someone’s trying hard behind scenes…

\r\n \r\n* Yes, that is an Oxford dictionary recognized word

It was all over so soon…. That’s what I’d say about our wedding.Btw, all mallu weddings are like that, it gets over in a jiffy. As one of my friends says, “you look away for a minute and the wedding will be over”. It’s always a short, simple ceremony. In a way I like it that way, but in many other ways I wish it were better…. The fun element is always missing (Dad would say, your kind of &lsqou;fun’ element). The sangeeth, mehendi and other pre n post marriage functions always allows mingling of both families. Due to crunch of time and many other trivial things here n there I couldn’t have a proper mehendi ceremony too. It was all pretty sad but then Biju would ask me time and again “Is all that really important? Isn’t it enough that we’re getting married finally?”

I wanted to live that moment without any hubbub or whatsoever. With so many people around, each one shouting a different instruction, it was confusing and frustrating too. But I’d to keep my cool and not fret, cos I’d promised to be ‘unlike my usual self’ at least on this day. Even before I could blink open my eyes it was all over, he’d tied the thaali around my neck. And then followed the long tiring session of photos, smiles and handshakes. In the end of it all I was too tired to even stand steady. Finally I got home with my head splitting under the weight of flowers and my ‘lovely long tresses’ ;-) I unable to recollect how the entire day passed by… everything was too very quick. It was only on the next day, when we went to the registrar’s office to register our marriage, could I thoroughly appreciate and feel the mood of being married.

It’s a funny thing that you never get to enjoy your own marriage as much as you get to enjoy others’ … I couldn’t even have the food properly, which everyone said was really good. :-( Nevertheless, I’m married, and that’s the only thing that matters. As of enjoying the wedding day part, what if I was not able to enjoy this one? There can always be more :-) (Well, I’m talking about marrying the same guy again, can’t I? What did u think here?)

I am on leave, from work, starting tomorrow and would be taking the train to chennai in the night, tomorrow. Earlier, the plan had been for me to shift to the new house (rented, of course) on Friday afternoon and take the Saturday night train. Unfortunately, the apartment owner hasn’t and won’t be able to move out and so I’ve decided to postpone moving in to the end of this month when we will be in B’Lore, as a couple. I don’t like the current state of affairs. I had wanted her to move in directly to a better place but now she will have to spend a few days at the old place. I am not sure if the aptmt-owner would move out (he’s in a bit of a bind) and that’s giving me the jitters.

Anyway, putting all that aside, I am off for the wedding tomorrow. This time next week, I will be happily married. Yipeee to that! No wedding blues, no jitters yet. About later, I don’t know. :)

Phew! Most of the shopping has been finished. I was in Chennai over the weekend to wrap up the clothes shopping. 17th August, supposedly being a auspicious day, is when we bought her wedding sarees. My parents, as expected, went on and on about how the saree wasn’t expensive enough – these parents, you know. :) Anyway, all that mattered was that she chose it because she liked it.

Then, on Sunday, we went shopping for my sherwani. I didn’t want one with too much embroidery on it, so we bought an off-whitish one with embroidery down the middle.

On a sidenote, I was stuck in traffic on all the three days there. It was nightmarish. And on every one of the three days I forgot to take something along. The first day it was my mobile – which became a huge problem because she was supposed to meet up with us at the shop and there was no way for her to contact me, the next day I left my wallet at home and on the third day when returning to Bangalore I left some stuff for my invite-cards in chennai. :-//