The wedding function-attended or not attended?
© Dr Hemant Junnarkar, All rights reserved
I used to meet a girl by name Joyce in the bus who also worked in my Company but not in my department (I worked in Finance). Joyce once told me her marriage was fixed. She said she would send me the wedding invitation soon. Joyce then went on wedding leave.
After a few days, I received wedding invitation from Joyce on my office e-mail. The wedding venue was given Ambadi, there were no other details. In Mumbai, two three stations ahead of Mira Road is another suburb called Vasai, where Christian people live in substantial majority, as earlier Vasai was ruled by Portuguese (Portuguese called the place Bassein).
I guessed, Ambadi was in Vasai from my past memory. The wedding was on Sunday. Before that, I happened to meet my brother-in-law who was Christian. He was a very knowledgeable person. I asked him if Ambadi was in Vasai and he casually confirmed it was in Vasai.
At 4.00 pm on Sunday afternoon I got ready, took an envelope with some cash as my wedding gift and took a Mumbai suburban local train going to Vasai. Before that, I do not remember to have ever visited Vasai. I got off at Vasai station, took an auto rickshaw and told the driver to take me to Ambadi. He took me to a place and told me that was my destination. It was evening time and I saw the place totally desolate.
I asked a passer-by, if the place was Ambadi. He said it was Ambadi Road. I though since it was Ambadi Road, it had to go to a place by name Ambadi. I asked him if there was any church there. He showed me the way to go to a nearby Church.
When I went to that Church, I did not find any wedding celebration, but a sermon was going on. To find about wedding Church, I sat in the sermon and asked a neighboring lady about the wedding Church. She told me that the Christians living in that areaa did not have wedding church and had approached the local government to set up a wedding church. She told me there were priests' residential quarters at a little distance, where I can check about wedding Church which I was looking for.
Then I walked out of the sermon and found the priests' residential quarters , but I did not find anybody in the quarters . Probably they had gone for some event.
It was getting dark and I lost any hopes of finding any wedding church there. I decided to go back and took an auto rickshaw. The people who have lived in Mumbai know how difficult it is in Mumbai to get an auto rickshaw going to your destination.
I talked to the autorickshaw driver about wedding church with the last hope and he told me that there was a church near Vasai station. That place definitely was not Ambadi. Yet I decided to take a chance. The autorickshaw driver took me to the church. I entered the church but found a different couple getting married. I was tired and it was 10.00 o'clock at night. I took a return train and came back to Mira Road.
The next day I went to office. Joyce was still on wedding leave. I happened to meet one person in payroll. He said to me that Joyce was a very funny girl not to have given a chance to anyone to attend her wedding. I asked him what he meant by that. He said that her wedding was in Karnataka. Then my silly but innocent efforts flashed in my mind to find the wedding church in Vasai in the state of Maharashtra, when the wedding function was actually taking place 750 kms away in Ambadi in the state of Karnataka.
Joyce returned from her wedding leave and I asked her why she did not give the complete address in her wedding invitation and told her about my futile struggle to find out the wedding church.
Joyce felt very sorry. She showed me pictures of her wedding function and also the bridegroom, then her life partner. Her husband was a preacher , not earning anything. I found Joyce a daring lady to marry a person who was not earning anything as it was a common practice for ladies to look for financial stability in their life partners.
Joyce told me that I had made sincere efforts to attend the wedding, which the God will recognize, because the God recognizes not success or failure, but sincere efforts.
It still remained a mystery why Joyce did not give complete address in the invitation for the most important event in life. If she had given complete address, I would not have moved out of house. Since there was no complete address in the invitation, I moved out of my house to attend a wedding which was happening 700 kms away. Did I move out of house to attend a stranger couple's wedding at Vasai station. I remember the bride and bridegrooms' eyes fixed at me for a moment to guess if they had known. I know marriages are made in heaven , but are guests also decided in heaven?
