January 2, 2025 ☼ life
Earlier last month, I traveled to South India for my friend Sriram’s wedding. It was a long journey from home, but my friends and I wanted to be there for Sriram.
A couple days before the wedding, Sriram’s family hosted a big celebration for their side of guests. A series of programs were prepared for the celebrations. Professional photo ops, speeches, dances, and so on. I wasn’t planning on giving a speech. More importantly, no one had asked me to prepare a speech. But after hearing others speak, I felt like I wanted to say a few words. I knew I would have regretted it if I hadn’t given one.
While other events were going on the stage, I asked Aswin, Sriram’s brother, if there are more speech opportunities. He said yes, and after whatever was going on the stage had ended, he went up and said there are more speeches prepared for Sriram. I had to throw our friend Michael on to the stage (with his permission with very short warning) first so that it wouldn’t be awkward to just cut the program back and forth for a single speech (sorry, Michael, but I also didn’t have much time).
Here’s is the speech I gave (with added context of how it went down at least in my head) or what I tried to convey or what I thought I had conveyed:
When I asked Aswin if there were more speech opportunities, I was on my fourth beer, but here I am holding my sixth beer, so the content of this speech might be different than how I initially planned it.
My name is Tyler, and I went to college with Sriram. One of my core memories of college was in the winter of 2017, I had just failed one of my finals. Instead of going to a retake, I just went to Sriram’s place, took a nap, and then we took a bus together to downtown to eat. For some reason, I remember this day very fondly.
*Sriram’s family shushing the crowd*
Decorum please, I’m talking.
Anyway, Fast forward, I had to go to the military in Korea. When I was a private second class, literally the lowest-ranked, Sriram came to Korea. I almost had to stage a coup1 to get out. I begged to be let out2, as the lowest-ranked member, to see my friend. I was lucky that they released me for the weekend, and I could see Sriram. We had fun and later at night, Sriram told me to come back when I was done with the military. I remember crying when I had to say farewell to him on the train back the next day.
(I also started tearing up a bit) Sorry, I’m a little drunk. Anyway,
Fast forward again, after a couple of years, when I was done with the military and came back to the United States, Sriram’s place was the first place I returned to and Sriram welcomed me into his home. I was very grateful.
After a year, when I was graduating, Sriram came to see me graduate. Just me and no one else. And I had no friends on the campus because all my friends had graduated three years before. But regardless, Sriram came to see me. If you’ve been to Champaign, Illinois, or actually, if you haven’t been to Champaign, Illinois, it is harder to get to Champaign than Karaikudi. But Sriram made the long journey from Seattle to just see me graduate college.
What I want to say is that Sriram was always there for me at every milestone in my adult life. So when I heard Sriram was getting married in Karaikudi, I was like I had to be there no matter what. I am happy to be here to witness Sriram’s new chapter of his life.
Thank you Karumba family for the hospitality, I’ve never had this many parathas in a single day. They were amazing. And congratulations again Sriram, I’m so happy for you. And thanks everyone for listening to this drunk speech, I’m obviously here to do stand-up comedy. Thank you.
That was the speech. I wasn’t prepared and I wish I had delivered it better. Regardless, I’m happy that I asked Aswin and I gave the speech. I thought I could also write about it to cherish the memory.
Congratulations, Sriram (and Kavya)!
it’s funny because then the President Yoon in South Korea just had just declared the martial law while I was on my second beer.↩︎
Our base had this policy, after a new member of the base (like after you get transferred from the boot camp/specialty training camp) spends a month at the base, can leave the base for like 36 hours as a “vacation” but you cannot go more than 100km from the base (as in, in case of an urgent situation, you need to be able to get back to the base within an hour). But there are limits to how many people the base allows to let out (and it was competitive, and other senior people had reasons/“qualifications” to be released). As the lowest-ranked member, I didn’t have much to say about these things, but I begged and begged to be released.↩︎