The Big Fat Indian Wedding....

I was on leave for 9 consecutive days, 2 weekends included, on account of my cousin’s wedding. This period was a welcome change from the lonely life I was leading. For 9 consecutive days the word “privacy” was out of my life. There were relatives around me at any given point of time. These 9 days had travel, rituals, gossiping, feasting and catching-up as the main events. Seeing my cousin go through the rituals has left me a worried man because sooner than later it’ll be my turn on the hot seat.
After 2 days of rituals at the bride groom’s place we left for Hyderabad for the wedding. The travel was the toughest part of the whole process. Taking a marriage party of 30 people and double the number of luggage is no joke and is a task every manager must go through. Add to this the fun of traveling by the Indian railways in the sleeper class during the hot Indian summer. Moreover we had reservations in 3 different bogies and this didn’t help the commotion in any which way. After a lot of efforts for trying to stabilize the chaos we simply gave up and took our seats and left the checking to the TTE. Gradually people settled down after exchanging, re exchanging their seats. It was fun to travel with such a huge group but it would have been better if all of us had got seats in the same bogie.
Next morning we reached Hyderabad and were faced with same problem of handling the luggage. Hard bargaining and negotiation were the lessons that came out of this when we hired coolies for our luggage. A whole trolley was required everywhere we went to move the luggage. The heat, crowd, kids and the barrage of instructions you get from the elderly in the gang can really test your temperament. One of my cousins’s whispered in a lighter vein “too many directors and too few actors”. But the few actors made sure that the story moved on. We reached the wedding hall safely and with the entire luggage intact.
More chaos greeted us as the hall had only 4 rooms and 2 each were shared by both the sides. It was really an experience for some of us used to good bathrooms and no- questions-asked bathing time to manage time in the bathroom as the next person in the queue would go nuts knocking on the door if there was the slightest delay. But the chaos and lack of facilities didn’t stop anybody from looking good. Everybody was at their best during these two days.
Good food, long forgotten relatives, gossip, lots of photographs, exchange of gifts and more rituals were the features of the two days. Unlike north-Indian marriages music is not really an integral part of our marriages and that is one thing I really missed. Some naach-gaana would have really added colour to the fun. Food makes or breaks a marriage. My observation has been that most complains of guests can be killed in the stomach by offering excellent food and that’s where the bride’s side scored. The food on offer was more than delicious.
Traditionally people used to deliberately pick up a fight so as to keep the bad omen away from all the overflow of happiness during the marriage. But there were no reasons for a fight during this marriage and the bad omen was kept away by the way of an unfortunate accident and some heated moments.
Those 2 days were gone in a blur and we were back on the train headed back to Bangalore. This trip was a refreshing change and has mentally prepared me for a bigger change in my life which will happen sooner than later…………I hope!