Jab We Met!

One of my friend called me up today and we were randomly chitchatting about arranged marriages and stuff. She asked me how I decided on this particular guy out of the whole lot and all this discussion drifted me in to the past.The memories still fresh in my mind and feels like we just met yesterday!
7th March, 2003 , the day I fell for someone special for reasons beyond my comprehension..
Dad had arranged for a meeting with their family at a common friends place in Hyd. I agreed very reluctantly as I didnt want to make daddy angry and I actually didnt have any strong reasons to say NO.I dunno how but mom somehow convinced me to wear a saree and make a pigtail out of my very short hair! I was looking funny enough for them to reject the alliance, thats what my mirror told me!
They came at around eleven in the morning,Naresh along with his dad, mom, younger sister & grandpa.There was this killing silence in the beginning as soon as I entered the room. I started feeling very awkward.Then people around me were trying very hard to break the silence and make Naresh and me talk. Arbit discussions about politics, traffic in Hyderabad, traffic in bangalore then draw a comparision between hyd and bangalore,Climate in bangalore. I found it hard to stop myself from giggling. Either people didnt know what to talk or they didnt mind talking anything!From from those generic topics, they became a lil specific, specific like, questions about my work, his work, how many leaves he has , how many I have, how many holidays do we have etc etc!Total waste of time and energy! I could sense that his mom was continously looking at me and may be even others and that made me more conscious!I wanted to look at him but wanted to avoid others gaze, rather didnt want anybody else to know that I was looking at him! Highly impossible I realised and then I was left with no other option but to become shameless and stare at him :) And to my surprise, he was not looking at me! He was more than shy to look at me. He preferred looking at the roof, the light, the fan, windows and the aunty who was serving sweets.It was probably his shyness that made me more shameless! I started staring at him shamelessly to see when he would look at me.Sweets, salted Kaju and soft drinks/tea was served. I was given prior instructions that even if I was tempted to eat what was served, I should not be even looking at them.. forget eating!There were several other instructions also, most of which I didnt follow.. Intentionally/Unintentionally. One of the instructions was that, I shouldnt sit with one leg over the other. I shouldve both the legs grounded. I didnt realise when I had gone in to my Rajni Style of sitting!
After all this dramabaazi, people realised that we should be given sometime to "interact" with each other. Sigh! I was waiting for him in the room and what do I see! His sister came along with him! The last thing I was expecting to happen!3 of us in the room and someone had to break the silenceand it had to be me! The first question I asked him was Do you know cooking?I still dont know what made me ask that question!!! Dumb me! They were shocked and surprised for obvious reasons and then on the conversation went for for about 15 minutes. Then I guess people sitting outside could no longer wait and all of them entered the room.Then what.. neither could he ask what he wanted to ask nor could I!
and till today.. we are making up for that! :)