Match Made in Wedding | Rajvardhan Hangargekar ✓

Epilogue

Rajavardhan Hangarekar

My 81st birthday is three days away. But more than that I am interested in the wedding invitation of Lizzie and Riyansh lying on the table in front of me. The turquoise embossing of fonts with silver linings are gleaming in the nighttime.

Had Devi been alive, their wedding would have been the 29th wedding, we would have attended together. It had all begun with Rutu and Kriti's wedding that had given way to our own wedding, six years later.

Weddings had somehow managed to make 28 special appearances in our lives. And this was a cameo, we both loved, because we weren't invited to all of the weddings!

I vividly remember, when I was a part of the 2032 Asia Cup squad, we hadn't seen each other for months. When my flight had landed in Chandigarh for the series against South Africa, I was prepared for a month full of video calls, chatting and yearning. But I saw my wife's smiling face waiting for me at the Chandigarh airport.

My happiness knew no bounds. Picking her up and turning her around, I told her that she had made me so happy that I wanted to do something for her. If I close my eyes, I can still see her tilting her head to the right and asking me with a challenging tone, "Anything?"

When I affirmed my promise, her mind started working. After a good deal of thinking, she looked at me with twinkling eyes and said, "Let's attend a wedding."

Anyone who did not know her would have thought that she was joking but her husband knew better.

Working on a disguise for me, she brought an oversized jacket, funky bracelet and yellow rimmed sunglasses for me to wear. Not to forget that her look was completed by a patiala suit, pleated hairdo and rectangular fake reading glasses.

Doing all the work herself and asking me to meet at a random banquet hall that seemed to be hosting a Punjabi wedding of two people called Karamjot Sahni and Amardeep Singh.

We even made up a story about me being her cousin from Canada who longed to attend a Punjabi wedding in Chandigarh, if we'd be caught.

Luckily, the hall was too overpopulated with Indian rishtedaars for anyone to notice us. We ate their food, danced a little and came running out of the hall, laughing. I couldn't believe that we had made it without being recognised!

Since then, weddings became a reconciliation ritual that Devi loved planning. She would keep an eye on the weddings happening in the city I was travelling to, choosing the most modest ones, handpicking the disguise and weaving a story around it.

Her job as a graphic designer allowed her the flexibility to move around cities and still submit her designs and meet deadlines.

I remember that when I had proposed to her, I had told her we were a match made in weddings. Little did I know that years later, we would make use of weddings to catch up, have fun, and live different lives.

If someone were to ask me what was my favourite part of all the secret weddings that we had attended then I would say the arrival of the bride. Devi loved looking at the groom's reactions. And I loved looking at how her face mirrored their happiness.

After all, the thing I loved the most about Devi was how easily she could empathise with people. Regardless of the location, Devi's energy matched with the energy of the one talking to her. Her emotion, an echo of her surroundings.

But her favourite part was being herself without any media scrutiny.

Imagine being sent a video from Anushka Sharma on Instagram where your wife is yelling, "Haan matlab MUH mein hai daal do Raj ke camera. Yehi bacha hai!! Eyelashes gin leti hoon mai uske."

She had sent a message along with it that read, "Now I know why Virat loves her."

I almost died of laughter that day.

And that was why I cherished our reconciliation ritual like anything. Because more than me, it gave Devi a way to breathe. To celebrate. To be herself and not Rajvardhan Hangarekar's wife.

After her death, I couldn't bear to attend any wedding. Invitations after invitations piled up on the corner of my table, on which Lizzie and Riyansh's card was on the top.

I have had this premonition since the past couple of days that the time of a heavenly reconciliation is not far.

And as my last breath leaves my body, I sigh in relief, thinking,

"It's been a long time without you, Devi."

*******

Afterlife is akin to waking up from a deep slumber. When I see her dressed in the purple and gold lehenga she had worn during our first wedding together, I feel a boyish grin appear on my face.

Leading me to a banquet hall, Devi says with a smile,

"Quickly change into this sherwani so that we can attend our 29th wedding together. Our daughter's cousin's niece-oh ho you're anyways bad at tracking who's who, so for your benefit - Lizzie and Riyansh are getting married."

I nod. Dumbfounded by seeing her again after fifteen years of separation.

Sensing my sadness she leans in to give me a hug and echoes my last thought.

"It's been a long time without you, Raj."