Estranged cousin’s wedding: Episode Two:Indora

The journey was uneventful other than the part where the only way to reach indora was by crossing the river in the car!! Yes a river right in the middle of a dirt road.

The driver paused at the bank momentarily, a person sitting behind a pickup truck passing by the car shouted as it crossed the river ” the water is not deep you can cross it in the car”. The driver a sardarji, turned the key and stepped on the gas and in we went. As my mom was all freaked out an the level of the water rose, my sister shouted back “quickly nidhish get the camera”. At one point of time it almost looked like the car wouldn’t make it through but it did. Though it didn’t come out very well I did manage to take a pic with the car in the river.

Indora is a small town in Himachal Pradesh with minimal development. Narrow roads, a population of some 5,000 in an area greater than 50 km in radius. It’s the sort of place you would like to visit when you get sick and tired of the hustle bustle of the city.

Estranged cousin’s wedding: Episode One:The Background

Things have never been rosy between my mom and the the younger of my two buas. But the thing hit rock bottom when I was in Kenya along with my dad. It reached a stage where my mom and bua couldn’t be in the same room without heated exchange of words. The best you could expect was a namste ji with a forced smile on both their faces followed by an awkward silence.

The wedding was to take place in Pathankot, and all events including ladies sangeet and saint were to take place in Indora. The sort of place which doesn’t come up on any search results on the web and google earth says that it doesn’t exist.

It was a must for me to go for the wedding as father is not here and the mama has a very significant role to play in the nieces wedding, and if the mama is not present to perform the rites, it’s the responsibility of the son to perform them in his place.