Day 8
The day started a little bit wacky. When I packed and was ready for the checkout Nirosha texted me that her uncle is on his way to pick me up (she truly become point of contact for me). Then car just came and the guy inside called me. I packed and get into the car. I didn't recognize him, but it wouldn't be strange, there were so many people on the wedding. But we couldn't really understand each other and he said something about Alleppey. I realized that's wrong car, apologized and unpacked. Soon enough came the correct car and I clearly recognized the person this time.
They dropped me at Tini's house. There were her father, mother and uncle from Malaysia. Their houses often are quite narrow, but very long instead. They always have kitchen sink in their halls or wherever they eat, to have ease of cleaning hand before eating. Another interesting aspect is that every room have their own bathroom. I never described how bathrooms look like, but generally except toilet and sink, there is shower, but it's connected to two taps (one with warm water, other cold) below it, which serve to fill the bucket. There's also smaller bucket inside bigger one that you use to take the water from bigger one and clean yourself.
They tried to engage me all the time, show me the house and feed me (or rather mother truly) two big masala dosa and some sweets. Later I learned that Nirosha wanted them to give me food on a banana leaf as she remembered that I told her about visit in Mariah's house. I didn't mind, but it was really sweet of her. Also later I learned that she came to see me, but it was unlucky time, because it was narrow time window when I was under shower to freshen up myself before dressing up.
We went to seek the bus and when we were already inside, it taken a lot of time for most people to actually enter the bus. They put me to sit at the front with some uncle. I tried to be nice and strike conversation, but I felt we don't really understand each other. He tried to call his colleague who supposedly was from Poland, but the name didn't look particularly polish. Soon enough cousins came dressed up very nicely. For some reason Nirosha was coming all the time back and forth from the back of the bus to the front and on one such occasions she taken me to the back to sit next to her.
During conversation in the bus, one of the exchanges that I remember was when she asked me to say something in polish. And obviously I had to say something patently obvious that give away mine thoughts. First words I gave her were "piękna" ("beautiful") and "dziewczyna" ("girl"). At least it made her laugh and she related what I said to brother-cousin. When we left the bus she was worried if she should wear translucent green dupatta, but I said that she looks good either way. Because we were always in proximity to some relatives, one female relative teased me:
"Oh, so only she looks good?" "No no, of course you all look amazing."
Venue for today was indoors and definitely didn't look as good and atmospheric as of previous day, but to be honest, it would be hard to beat up it. In many ways it was the same format as yesterday, but organized by groom's side. The newlyweds were displayed at the center of the stage and there were a lot of photoshoots there and people who couldn't come yesterday brought gift as well.
Nirosha definitely tried to keep me close to herself at all the times. She was telling that she didn't want me to sit alone, but I hope she enjoyed my company. Whenever we were separated for one or the other reason she called me back to herself. We were doing another photos of the day with each other, but also someone did candid photo of us talking to each other, but it looked actually quite good. My limited Malayalam couldn't tell me that for sure, but it was clear that people were joking and teased her about us. At some point she simply didn't want to translate what are they telling.
When the time came and people of Kollam went to return to the bus I felt my time to say something significant to her is closing, but there were always some relatives around. When I tried to say my goodbye, Tini's sister said directly upfront: "You're gonna miss especially her, right?" pointing at Nirosha. It was quite embarrassing, but it didn't deter me to actually come to Nirosha and say that I'm going to miss her.
I stayed for finishing part, waiting for the end and information on where I could stay for the night today. Groom's side started to dance and I joined them. Either way it wasn't long before everything wrapped up completely. I said my goodbye to Tini (and she properly mentioned that wasn't good idea to take suitcase to Indian trip instead tourist backpack). Friends of groom taken me to my room in some hostel. One of them, Abhinand, invited me to his home next day to eat breakfast.
Room wasn't in the big standard, but I didn't mind really. What was really on my mind was that I'm probably not going to see all these people again. Especially Nirosha, of course. Maybe not even Tini. With these gnawing feelings, I really didn't have nothing better to do than prepare to sleep. Maybe sleep will ease the pain of the heart.
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