Ajay's engagement

December 18th was my best friend Ajay's engagement. It was in Hubli, and i hadnt visited Hubli since the time my parents shifted to Bangalore. So, this was the first time that i had to stay in a lodge in Hubli. It sounded like a good adventure in itself for me. The engagement party was in the morning, and so i planned to reach Hubli a day before on 17th in the evening. Reached Hubli at about 10 in the night, and booked a room in the very famous "Modern Lodge" there. It was a single bed room, and instantly reminded me of my final year at college hostel. Just that there were no friends to be along with here.

Woke up early in the morning, and took some cool snaps of the railway station in the morning mist. Had to wait for a long time to have my shirt ironed there, since it being a sunday, no shops were scheduled to open by 10 !! Luckily, the engagement was postponed to 11, and i had enough time to be there on time. So, i did a quite a bit of site seeing around the railway station, going to all the well known shops there, and taking some nice snaps too. I was lucky enough to get a very cordial auto rickshaw driver, who took me to the venue. He was a very old man, and was kind enough to ask me if he should wait there at the venue till the end of the function, since it wasnt easy to get an autorickshaw from that place back to the station. He even reminded me that i had to reserve my ticket before hand [ which i had already done, and regretted it later on ] so that i can have a hassle free journey.

The king of the day, arrived at 11:30 in his car, and had a grand reception, with flowers showering on him at the entrance. Was a royal welcome i should say :) We were then asked to have our breakfast, and we then came back to the main hall for the main ceremony. I was thinking that this would be a very simple ceremony, and had already booked my return ticket for the 1 pm train, since i couldnt get the ticket for the 6pm train. But, the ceremony turned out to be rather a very long one, with all the pooja, and other things included. I had to leave the function midway, and Ajay was courteous enough to introduce his fiancee to me, before they exchanged the rings. I later on came to know that the function lasted till 4 pm in the evening and that Shilpa, Ajay's fiancee, actually song some 3 songs, and Ajay was completely bowled over.

The return train started at 1:30 pm and I came back to Bangalore, or is it Bengaluru already ? whatever .. i took this pic for posterity. Had a great time taking some cool sunset snaps on the journey back home.