Our First Diwali
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Festivals with that special someone become all the more special.

We woke up with a sound of crackers from the neighborhood and had halwa, poori and kheer…yummy!!

After that, we strolled in the market for hours with mostly everyone selling something for Diwali – Diyas, Diwali decoration, sweets, gifts and a lot more. It’s amazing to see the energy with which people shop for Diwali.

In the late evening, we climbed up the roof top of our house and had a spectacular view of Delhi with Metro running at a distance, sound of crackers, and houses all lit up.

Later, we prayed to Goddess/God Lakshmi and Ganesh and decorated the house with candles and diyas.

The day ended with deafining sound of crackers and some beautiful fireworks in the sky, which we watched from our balcony and enjoyed a lot.

Truly a memorable Diwali!

My First Karwa Chauth
Karwa Chauth 2009

It was a different and wonderful feeling, something you don’t feel often.  Morning started pretty good with me fully excited to prepare all sorts of goodies for the festival. Once I finished the preparation and the puja, I started feeling hungry. This was my first fast in over 12 years and that too with no food and no WATER. By evening, food was all over the place – my mind being completely occupied with it…hehe. It still felt good :)

In the evening, I got all decked up for my hubby (as you can see in the pic ;) ) and we started waiting for the chanda maama to be visible. But like always, chanda maama was playing hide-n-seek. First visible in Delhi, then Lucknow, then other places…but no traces in Bangalore. Oh man, I was never so keen on getting a glimpse of chaand.

At last, my hubby found him hiding in one corner behind the trees from the main gate of our building. So, we gathered all the stuff and ran downstairs. After finishing the puja, our friends Manu and Abhi came over. We had food and I ended up over-stuffing myself :)

Hoping next year is going to be simple and much more fun :)

Why GOD, Why
Cheers!

…and with this, I turned 30!

Why GOD, why? Why did you do this to me?

Celebrating 3 decades

Boman Irani asks Abhishek Bachchan in Bluffmaster:

Roy, tumhe apni zindagi mein aise kitne khoobsurat din yaad hain….first job, pehla shoot, pehli salary, jab tumne ladki ko pehli baar chuua….pehli baar chuma, jab pehli baar tumhara dil dhadka…Aise kitne din yaad hain, 15, 20, 25 din, 30? Bas 30….30 special days…30 saal ki zindagi, aur tumhe sirf 30 din yaad hain?

Well, I’ll be 30 coming monday, Sept 7 to be exact. And we want to make it to be a din jo yaad rahe.

Let’s gather at my place on Sunday (Sept 6) and celebrate!

Place: C1-1607, L&T South City

Time: 7 pm

Dress Code: Formal – Shirt / Trousers for guys, and …. well, anything for the girls since they don’t listen anyway!

Honeymoon
Vikas & Vini in Mauritius

We chose the beautiful Mauritius for our honeymoon. And believe me, it’s amazing place. We stayed there for a week and enjoyed a lot.

Reception
Vikas & Vini at Reception

We had our reception the next day (Jul 2) in Delhi.

Wedding
Vikas & Vini during wedding

We got married on July 1, 2009 in Delhi.

Wedding Invite
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After years of convincing by ranavikas, sagivini has finally agreed to change her marital status. We’re getting married on Jul 1, 2009 in Delhi, just two months before I turn 30. (Never mind the bride’s age, she’s 23 ever since she passed out of college)

Our story goes back long, long time ago – 2004 to be precise, before the era of twitter and facebook, when people used to meet face to face. Although a lovely story on how we met would have been nice fit for the occassion, unfortunately, it was in highly unromantic setting of Trilogy office, so I’ll skip that part. For a change, I was the boss at that time.

It wasn’t like Raj and Simran type love-at-first-sight, but more like Jai and Aditi in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na where we graduated from we-are-just-friends to we-are-more-than-just-friends with time. Another chapter is now being written coming July.

Keeping in mind that our CFO (ofcourse, he’s the baniya amongst us, he has to be the CFO) is also getting married on the same day 269 kms away, we’ve kept reception on 2nd July so that everybody gets a chance to fund Must See India :P Two marriages on the same day is in-line with our corporate goal of extreme efficiency and eternal cost-cutting. Our CTO whokan got married few days back.

When Google launched maps, I promised my friends that I’ll include a link to map in my wedding card. Unfortunately, the paper cards were printed in a hurry, I had to leave the link for the online version! So, here’s the venue.

For those who have not yet booked a ticket, consider it booking from our website – www.mustseeindia.com, you’ll find the cheapest flight fares there.

Notes to self
Indulge in shameless self promotion (done excessively)
Keep page Search Engine friendly (done, all important keywords included)
Raise fund for startup via gifts (done my part, other have to follow now)
Impress the bride via this page (hopefully done, will know soon!)

PS: For the purists, the traditional invite is here.
PPS: We live at sagivini [at] gmail [dot] com and ranavikas [at] gmail [dot] com.