Kishore Singh: The Jaipur food express

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It was just 10 days ago or so that we'd been in Jaipur for a wedding, and here we were returning to the pink city not for one but three more weddings "" and all on the same day.

"The last time we were here," complained my wife, as we made our way to the first of the cousin's marriages we'd come to attend, "we missed that fabulous greedy food train."

"You mean the Gourmet Express," I explained, which had been part of a food and wine show. "That's right," she said, after we'd met a whole lot of clan members who still looked vaguely familiar from the previous wedding; "something about going to different restaurants to make a pig of yourself."

By now we'd settled down with a drink, and snacks were beginning to make the rounds. "Actually," I explained to my wife, "the whole idea was to have a four-course meal served in four different restaurants." "Which I missed thanks to your cousin's nuptials," she cribbed, biting into a leg of fried chicken.

Because all three weddings were more or less at the same time, we didn't stop too long at the first venue, but even so by the time we got to the second wedding, dinner had already been laid.

"I think we should eat here," said my wife, serving herself to what I thought was a very generous helping. "This," I explained, "is just like the Gourmet Express, where the main course was served at a second restaurant, dessert at a third restaurant, and post-prandial drinks at a bar thereafter."

"I don't know about your fancy food train," my wife mocked me, "but this is better food than I've had in a long time, and I think you should eat too." But I was not hungry yet, besides there were some guests who were inclined to be chatty. Which is why by the time we left for the third and final leg of our three-in-one marriage marathon, I was beginning to feel just a wee bit peckish.

Unfortunately, everyone seemed to have finished eating at the third pit stop, but even so my wife, who thinks it ungracious to refuse a host's exhortation to eat, decided that since she hadn't had a proper first course, she ought to have a soup and salad. And what with having to explain to the other guests why we had been so late, in no time at all we were exiting with my stomach by now definitely growling with hunger. "So," gloated my wife, as we got into the car, "that gravy train of yours, it had guests go to four restaurants, right?" "Right," I said, "but unfortunately we have no more weddings to attend, and I am very hungry."

"And I," said my wife, "have still to eat dessert." "Would you like me to take you to a hotel coffee shop?" I asked my wife. "Don't be silly," she retorted. "With so many weddings in the city, it would be foolish to go to a restaurant and pay for a meal." "But we don't have any more invitations," I said in dismay. "You know that," said my wife, "and I know that, but no one else does, so," she pointed to what was clearly another wedding party at what appeared to be a commercial venue, "I think this seems to be a nice place for you to have dinner and me some pudding."

Later, as I was changing to go to bed, thankfully on a full stomach, my wife said: "Sure beats that fuddy-duddy food express thing in Delhi, right?" "Er, right," I agreed.