Mehandi Songs

Last week on Friday it was Asma's mehandi. And Thursday night she called me and asked if I could make a nice pattern with mehandi on hands. Then she asked me if I had a load of songs memorised to sing at the ceremony. The answer from my side to both the questions was No. I knew I could doodle with the mehandi cone on the hands, but the patterns would not be fit for a bride. I also knew a couple of songs to sing but they too wouldn't have been enough.

So she assigned me the task to try and remember and write as many songs as I could during my journey. I had no option but to say yes. So while packing my clothes and shoes, I packed a writing pad and a pencil as well. I also picked up an old cassette of "shadi" songs form the pile so that I could get a few songs from it.

Armed with all the "song writing" stuff, I set off. When I had settled in my "final" seat and the coach had travelled half an hour, I decided it was time to start the assignment.

I took out the writing pad and pen. Then I put the cassette in my walkman, put the earphones in my ear and pressed the "Play" button. I was expecting to hear some music but instead I heard a "click" and the cassette stopped. I tried again and again to play it but it didn't budge. I even changed the cells in the walkman and tried to rewind the cassette with my finger, but nothing worked.

So finally after about 30 minutes I gave up.

Then I tried to rely on my mind, but turned out that that too was not in full working order [as always]. ;-)

At the end all I could do was to make a list of the names of the songs and write a couple of incomplete ones. I did feel bad that I couldn't remember more. But at the same time I wanted to kill Asma for not assigning me this task a few days ago. She had to do it at the last minute. :-P

But anyways, everything turned out well. We managed to sing some broken songs for a while with the "dholkee". And then our conventional music was first replaced by the modern sound system and then by the loud "bhangra" drums which the "larkay walay" (boy's family) had brought with them.

It turned out well, so I guess it was all quite well.