I was still brushing dust off my shoes when the thought hit me again, the one that kept showing up all evening, usually when the music dipped, or someone shouted her name from across the courtyard. How did Kiki get here so fast? Not the literal here, the palace in Gwalior with its quiet gardens and those slightly chipped balustrades that give it charm, but the grown-up here, the part where she stands in a bridal lehenga and her brother, Kartik, suddenly looks both proud and a little thrown off.
The place had been buzzing since the afternoon. Rooms filling up with cousins, half-finished cups of chai sitting in corners, someone wrestling with a suitcase that refused to close. Every wedding feels like this before it settles into the actual ceremony. You keep thinking you have hours, and then suddenly you don’t. I saw Kartik moving through the crowd the way people do when they’re trying to look helpful but are actually tracking one specific person. His eyes kept returning to Kiki. Not hovering, not anxious, just this soft, steady checking in that older siblings never grow out of.
She looked beautiful, yes, but more than that, she looked calm. Women often practice their bridal walk, but hers didn’t have that rehearsed stiffness. She was taking it all in, almost studying the room as if she wanted to remember which aunt was sitting where, what the lights looked like from her angle, how the marigolds smelled when she passed under them. A small detail, but it caught me. It felt like she was making peace with the day even while it was still unfolding.
Then Tejashwi entered with that easy stride pilots seem to be born with. Not performative. Not trying too hard. Just a man happy to be exactly where he was supposed to be. Someone behind me whispered he seems steady, and I remember nodding because there was truth in the observation. Weddings often reveal who balances the room, and that evening it was him.
The haldi earlier had been comic in the way only family functions can be. Kartik had turmeric on his sleeve that he kept wiping, which only made it worse. People tried directing group photos that absolutely refused to align. A kid started crying because someone touched his hair. Another kid laughed at the crying kid. Total chaos, but somehow the joyful kind.
Even the sangeet felt slightly improvisational. Music that kept being restarted. An uncle dancing half a beat ahead of the rhythm. Someone carrying a plate of samosas like they were crown jewels. Kartik looked like he enjoyed not being the centre of attention for once. He blended into the clumsy fun the way most of us do at our own family parties.
But the pheras were different. Something dropped into place then. The noise shrank. The lights dimmed a little, or maybe that’s just how memory frames things. Kartik stood off to one side with his hands clasped, shoulders lifted in a breath he hadn’t quite let out. Watching his sister circle the fire with her new husband, something in his face shifted. Families can read these moments better than cameras ever will. It was the expression of someone realising a chapter had turned without waiting for him to be ready.
His Instagram caption later didn’t surprise me. Those words, the part about days changing your world quietly, felt like the kind of thought you keep turning over in your mind until writing it down is the only way to settle it. Fans online circled it instantly with congratulations and heart emojis, but for once, the internet noise didn’t irritate me. People seemed genuinely moved. Maybe because the moment itself had been so unfiltered.
The morning after weddings has its own mood. Slightly wilted flowers. People wandering around with coffee, speaking softly as if the day might break if they talk too loudly. I saw Kartik again then. His expression was lighter, but also emptied in that normal way everyone gets after emotional overload. Not sad. Just reorganised.
And that is what stuck with me. The whole wedding didn’t feel like a spectacle, not even with a star in the family. It didn’t try to be cinematic. It felt like a real family event that just happened to take place in a palace. Slightly lopsided. A little loud. A little tender. The kind of day you remember with uneven clarity, some parts sharp, some fuzzy, all of it meaningful.
By evening, the mandap was half dismantled. A couple of marigolds still clung to their strings, unwilling to drop. Someone’s perfume lingered in the air. A child’s toy was left on a chair. And in that strange, quiet afterglow, it hit me again how fast lives change when no one is watching closely.
Kritika stepped forward into her new life with the confidence of someone who chose well. And her brother watched her go with the heart of someone who finally realised she didn’t need him in the same way anymore, though she’d always return in the ways that count.
That’s what families do. They shift. They stretch. They surprise you when you least expect it.
And somehow, without trying, this wedding stayed with me in that exact shape.
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Sana has been covering film, fame, and everything in between for over a decade. From red carpets to rehab rumors, she brings nuance, wit, and an insider’s edge to every story. When she’s not reporting, she’s probably watching Koffee With Karan reruns or doom-scrolling celebrity IG feeds.
