One Day of being the Best

I am not the best, definitely not. But for one day I was known as the best man. The odds of me having the honour  of being the best man to my best mates wedding is extremely rare. I do not think I am going to get another chance in this life time. I say so , because back home in Hindu weddings there is no concept of "best man" and I do not have much Christian friends in India.
The build up to this special day , which is the twenty seventh of June has been coming since quite a while. Ever since my Best mate proposed to the love of his life, the planning had kicked off.

Let me throw some light on Mihir, the man of the hour. My Acquaintance with him started  at work. From then on it grew to being friends, later good friends then finally leading to flat mates. I refer to him as Mihir bhai. Many here think I call out to him as Mihir 'boy'.  Its kind of true since he is a boy at heart. A person where the age has never effected his attitude to look for fun or being positive at everything. That's Mihir. There are many life lessons that I have learnt from Mihir and I cherish each one of them. At one point in everyone life one realises there is one another friend whom you are going to stay in touch with, till the end of life. Mihir falls into that bracket for me.

Back to the planning. Ever since the proposal to Kate was done we all knew that Mihir totally deserved one hell of a stag party . He's of the type who would make any stag party he attends to come to life. But Mihir also is an accountant by academics, so he likes everything organised. That is when Mihir ask three of his best buddies to be his Best men, I am lucky to be one of them. He started planing what he wanted for his own Stag. I had my reservations with that approach. I have met Bekir Andrews, Mihir's university buddy before so I engaged with him directly keeping Mihir out of the loop for the Stag trip planning. Mihir provided us with the contact details of his friends. We took up one suggestion of his, which is the location. It is not one of the places to be known as Stag heaven, but we did accept since it was a sensible place. Milton Keynes. Mihir had friends from Dublin,
Birmingham, London and Spain. MK seemed more convenient . Bekir a.k.a Becks was very good at planning and we got rolling. Since Mihir was a out door-sy person we decided to head to a GO-Ape out door adventure place, then followed by bowling fun and then the inevitable yet the secondary highlight (though some think this is the primary highlight ) of the day, the pub crawl!
June the 7th was the date for the Stag. The stag list was long,  as below

Mihir Patel, Nadeem Din, Kumaswamy Parthipan, Bekir Andrews, Anthony Cannon, Simon Walker
Lee Ali, Paul Green, Nick Moon, Maurice McNamara, Alan O'Reilly, Shane J Kelleher, David T Phelan, Richard G Meikle, Lee Dando, Brian Clearly and me.

The dublin folks took the early morning flight to meet the rest of the boys at MK, Have some food and the head to the adventure spot.  The fun we had there could not be expressed in words, Not even pictures were enough only a video could do that . I will let the video speak for itself.


Some were wrecked with all this physical activity, few petrified and some mortified, But the star of the day Mihir was like an eight year old left unleashed! Mission accomplished !! Nad, Becks and Myself wanted just that. With deformed rear ends, bruised limbs and whip lashes we Headed back to hotel. After a quick shower we headed to the bowling arena. Becks was running a tight schedule where many doubted if we would hit all the spots on time, but none the less we made sure everything went by plan. After the bowling action, we had dinner and then hit the pubs. I had too many shots to remember and too many beers to count. The whole evening is a blur to me. Mihir seemed to like unstoppable. He could go on and on. I on the other hand was a total mess. My buddy Maurice made sure I got back to the hotel, for which I will be grateful.
Following morning, it was time to say good bye to all after a quick breakfast. All went back with the assurance that we will all meet up once again on the 26 th of June.

Mihir and Kate were extremely busy in arranging for the wedding. The venue was Dublin's finest place  for a wedding. The iconic Clontaraf castle was where the ceremony was at. Not too many days left and Mihir bhai was getting the guest list and rooms booked for guests who travelled afar. Becks , Nad and myself had the privilege of the presenting the Best man speech. We were busy with that and the number of times it went back and forth for the revisions they have had is innumerable. We had the option to use a projector at the venue and we went for it. I very secretively spoke to Mihir bhai's dad and got him to send me photographs of old photographs of Mihir bhai from the Album they had in London. I had seen those pictures when I was over and I had a rough idea what I wanted.
Writing up a speech about the person whom you know quite well is not tough. Just the few pictures and all the past conversation I have had with Mihir bhai and his parents were like fine thread to me which weaved itself into a fine fabric to me. With the deck ready and the speech timed I was almost ready.
I went out shopping for myself some new shoes, socks and other bits and bobs. One shiny cuff-links that spelt the obvious "BEST MAN" was also a part of my shopping list. I know that I could not use them on any other day other than this one day and it was all worth it.
I had copies of the proceedings of the day, Memorised the timing schedule of sequence of events.

Most of Mihir bhai's family were arriving the day period to the wedding day. The tradition of "pheri" was held at the castle. The staff at the castle were kind to accommodate. I finished work early and headed straight to castle. It was indeed a great pleasure to meet Mihir bhai;s parents. They are the sweetest ever and the affection they have shown me all these years is much like my own parents to me. I wanted to make sure they were comfortable. Few of the other guests who were also at the stag arrived and it was a joy to meet their other halves . All of the lads seemed to he every happy to be there. We had dinner and the activity for the evening began. Mihir bhai, came well prepared to the hall in shorts on Tee's It was going to be messy. Mihir bhai's mu and all his aunts and cousins gathered around him and he was smothered with fine paste of sandalwood. A handsome man he is, and this is to make him even better. Kate's parents were witnessing this and I am sure they were surprised. But such well spirited folks they are that they jumped into the party as well and gave Mihir bhai a good dollop of the paste on his Belly. ( An unusual place to have it applied ).

The big day had finally arrived. Mihir bhai came around to pick me up and we went to the Venue. My wife and my Little one would join me later. We had the time to go through the schedule, the guest list, the Venue and got ourselves familiarised with the different service providers of the day, just so that they have point of contact.

It was time for us to get ready. This is the point when you realise the show is now on!!. We boys got into a room and took our fresh suits and finely polished new shoes out. The sparkling cuff-links out of the small box. Kate had given each of a tie to match with what the bride's maid were wearing. Mihir bhai was looking for a million dollars and his enthusiasm was contagious. We we aware Kate is going to look like a billion dollars getting ready upstairs.  We had to make sure Mihir bhai at least looked like a couple of million. That he sure did. The custom cuff-link and the suit with the picture of Kate's favourite cat coco was put on. All the anxiousness and enthusiasm filled the room with high spirits.

 It was time for the civil ceremony, The ambience of the room was fantastic. With all the proceedings going really smoothly and the words spoken there definitely resonating with most of us few of us emotional. I had the privilege of being the witness to the wedding.

Now that Mihir bhai were legally, officially husband and wife it was time to celebrate. As the new couple walked out the guests all got to throw some confetti  which was fun and a great photo op. Ever one headed out and the photographer did a great job of taking a group shot. Kate and Mihir went with the photographer to take more shots. Becks, Nad and myself were busy to get our laptops hooked up to the projector. Made sure that the food was all ready. There were varied dietary requirements and ensured that was all taken care off.

We made the announcement to all the guests to come into the dining hall.  The guest names and their respective table names were put on display on a beautiful mirror. The hall was beautiful with lot of attention to detail for each table, the flowers at each table, the chairs well spaced. The whole ambience of the room was staged quite suits for such a wonderful occasion.

It was time to make the speech. Mihir bhai started off and made quite an interesting presentation with all animations , more importantly it reflected how much he loved Kate and the journey they had been through the past couple of years. Kate actually stole the best flat mate I have ever had, but I am glad my flat mate found a soul mate. Becks presented his share of the speech elaborating about Mihir's University life. The wild person he was , was pictorially well laid out for the one hundred plus guests to see. Nad followed Becks and he did draw an even better picture .
The last person to finish off the speech was me and even If I had know him the past seven years, it always felt like I had known Mihir bhai longer. His family, were also close to me. I decided to share how Mihir's childhood was and how much a family person he was. Kate was a person on the same lines of Mihir and it was evident that they made a great match. My speech drew to an end and it was time for a wonderful dinner. My Wife and Daughter had joined me at the table. We had an awesome meal, I even went for two rounds of desert.
At the corner of the room stood a beautiful cake which had to be cut. Mihir and Kate rightfully did the honour and I must admit it was one of the best pastry I have had, I helped myself with some twice!
The DJ meanwhile was spinning some really nice tracks. Few of the numbers on the list were the Bollywood time recommended by Mihir bhai. That got going most of the Indian crowd. The dance floor, lets say had not an inch to be spared. My wife , how lets say is two left foot was also pulled into the dance floor by Kates dad. He got her moving and it looked like for once she enjoyed dancing. It was fun and honestly a joy to watch everyone enjoy. Young little 4 year old to seventy year old seniors like. For a moment everyone seemed to be enjoying like the lucky four year old.
That's how I like to remember this day of mine. A day that brought so much of joy to so many, A day that made me feel special because It was such an honour to have a important place on a one of the most significant milestone of my brother. A day that gave me a sister in law in Dublin.

Since then every morning , as I get ready to go to work, I have the cuff-link on the shelf next to the shirt. I give it a look and walk away with a smile. I cherish that day. The day I had the title of being the best, for my best "bhai".