We are all immensely proud of the culture we have in India. The families are big with so many people staying in touch with each other that recalling the relationship between two members is next to impossible. In the end we are forced to just say he/she is my brother/sister because we are told to do so. It doesn’t matter how we are related. The biggest advantage of being a part of a family which outnumbers any small town of Europe in terms of population is that you get to attend a lot of functions and functions have food. Free food! The taste buds can make you attend functions you never intended to attend.
Last month I was forced to attend one such function. I am not much of an outdoor person; I try to avoid as much outdoor activity as possible, but my mother has her own way of forcing me into all this stuff. When the card arrived I had my excuse ready but my mother sensed it and said,” If you won’t attend these functions no one will come to your wedding!” This lady who happened to be my mother had a pretty valid point. So for the sake of my future I decided to attend it. I inquired my mother how this to-be-married cousin of mine and I were related. “His grandmother’s brother in law’s cousin and your uncle’s brother in law are cousins who used to study together and since they live in the same city as ours, we are invited.” For people who think integration problems are pains in the ass, just figure this relation out! But who cares, in the end free food is all that matters.
So the day arrived and I reached the venue before the Baaraat (The groom’s procession). At the entrance, two girls wearing sarees in an elegant manner were standing on either side of the gate, their sole purpose was to greet the guests. Trust me I’ve never witnessed a more graceful Namastey ever. I would have introduced myself then and there had my mother not pulled me inside. When I went inside I saw around 75 dishes lined one after the other in the lawn, the scene was so emotional that I almost cried out of happiness. I sat around a round table with my parents hoping that someone of my age known to me would show up. I waited for 30 minutes but no one came. While I was waiting a relative of mine came to meet us. It was fine for the first five minutes but then I don’t know how he did it but he changed the topic from the marriage to the yucky allergy his wife was having. Some people don’t know how to talk according to the situation. My father was constantly trying to avoid him but he was stuck on the various ointments he had to buy for the sake of Bablu’s mother. Thank God I was texting my friend at that time otherwise I would have puked there. She reminded me that I was there for the food not to listen to the crap of this guy. So I decided to gorge upon the food instead.
The first stop was the Gol Gappas .Some people have a habit of classifying food sexually. Like Gol Gappas are believed to be a feminine food, only girls love it. The Gol Gappa vendor was one of those sexists. The moment I asked for the 7th piece he looked at me like I was missing Mascara or lipstick on my face. Why don’t these people understand that guys love these spicy snacks too without being pregnant? After this I left the stall and moved towards the next ‘neutral’ snack. Having eaten most of the snacks, I decided to give my taste buds a break. Now it was time to soothe my eyes. In these marriage functions it is not a difficult task for there are saree draped angels everywhere! It was turning out to be a great evening; I was rating girls out of 10 irrespective of how they would have rated me. After giving away consecutive sevens there was a 13! Yes thirteen! Way above the maximum. That girl was so beautiful that I would have married her if I got even the tiniest chance. Everything about that girl was stupendous. What gorgeous eyes she had! She was beautiful above the prescribed limits. Had I looked at her for a second more I would have looked like this:
She started to move towards the main course area. I immediately followed her. She even smelled great. With every second I loved her more. Everything about her seemed perfect, just perfect. When we reached near the curry dishes she got confused as there were so many options. She was discussing what to eat with her friend and I was just behind her approving every rejection of her. Everything was going great but then I heard something bad, terribly bad. So bad that that if Juliet would have said it to Romeo, he would have killed himself. Words can hurt more than an injury. She was looking at one of the curry dishes when she blurted out,” Chhavi look at these idiots, they have prepared Zucchini (English for Tori ki Sabzi) for this wedding. Duh!” First of all there was no need to ’Duh’ at any food item which is available for free and secondly for God’s sake that was not Zucchini! No one prepares it for a wedding. That was something else (Even I couldn’t figure what it was exactly. However it was not Zucchini for sure.) Needless to say her beauty decreased substantially.
To refresh my mind I went near the dance floor. North Indian weddings never disappoint. Everyone does something worth noticing. With the passage of time people dancing on the DJ tracks change.
- In the initial stage of the party there are toddlers jumping on the dancing floor. They look so adorable.
- After an hour the toddlers are replaced by a group of guys who dance just to impress girls. Their dancing skills are limited to doing the front stoke equivalent of swimming and dance like Vodafone zoo zoos.
- After them the dance floor is dominated by aunties who have truck hauling torque in their bums. Each thumka of theirs has a power of at least 100 HP. According to the safety norms not more than 3 aunties are allowed to dance.
- Everything changes with the arrival of Baaraat. After the Baaraatis climb the dance floor you can’t figure out what they are doing exactly. They don’t dance that is for sure. It is a sort of civil war except that the people happily hurt each other without complaining.
- In the last phase i.e. after midnight the drunken veteran dancers arrive. They dance on the punjabi classic “Do ghut pila de saathiya (O partner of mine, Give me booze – rough translation)” and others. They do the very famous balancing a whiskey bottle on their head step every once in a while. Things become uncontrollable when they drag their wives into this.
All this ends with a fight with the DJ. This is the normal dancing routine.
I left the DJ area after I saw a fourth aunt approaching the dance floor as I didn’t want to hurt my already hurt eyes. I was searching for my parents when suddenly my mother signaled me to join her, she was sitting with some lady unknown to me. When I reached her, she introduced me to that lady. She was another Bua (Father’s sister) of mine. I greeted her and took her blessings. People who complain about pain in their waist area can try this exercise. Just go to a relative’s wedding and greet every elder properly i.e. Namastey followed by the touching of feet. Trust me, after you have done this a hundred times you won’t feel anything in your waist for days. I was in the middle of introducing myself when out of the blue I saw that Zucchini girl approaching our table.
“Look Leela (My mother’s name) our daughter has grown up.” I wish I could say Oh my God the same way Janice says in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. because only this would have justified my reaction at that time.
“Oh my God! You look so pretty beta!” *No doubt about that*
“Thank you Aunty.” She said with a smile on her face.
“Beta meet my son Abhishek, you met him a long ago. You were kids back then. You won’t remember though.” My mother introduced me to her.
“Hi, I am Abhishek. Nice to meet you.” I said it in a normal tone. It seemed my pumpkin isn’t afraid of beautiful sisters.
“Hi! I’m Nyasa.”
“Which class are you in son?” inquired my aunt.
“I study in college aunt. It is my second year. CSE branch.”
“Huh! What college?” She started giggling. “Don’t you dare fool me? You look like an 11th grade student and you claim to be a college student. Boys do this all the time Leela. Don’t you eat anything son? Look at you!” *Holy mother of God it is either my own pumpkin or people like her; I am bound to get screwed every time. I wish I could say my BMI is normal but then I would have to explain BMI to this Zucchini eater’s mother. Screw it*
I didn’t say anything I just dodged the question by smiling.
Then her daughter inquired me about my college.
“I am in G.B.Pant Engg College.” She got confused on hearing this.
“Umm it is a Government college of IP university, Delhi” She was still confused.
“I am doing B.Tech from Delhi.” This relaxed her lines off her forehead, probably because B.Tech and Delhi were familiar to her. No doubt she found Zucchini in a wedding.
“What about you?”
“I am doing B.A. from RCC.”
“RCC?” I was unaware of this short form.
“It is near DPS School, Meerut road.” She was giving away hints which I understood then but I wanted to take my revenge so I kept mum.
“Sorry I don’t get it. Tell me the complete name.” *Say it please*
“Ram Chameli Chadda College”(Lord Ram Jasmine Underwear College – rough translation). Her face showed the embarrassment which her college name carried. I was holding my laughter by then. And there is a college by this name in real and the best part is that it is a girl’s college!
She left with her mother after this and I mentally high fived myself. Half an hour later after finishing the desserts I left for my home too.
There are a number of things worth noticing about North Indian Weddings:
- They love spending money on weddings and showing it off.
- If you think you cannot dance just see how insanely people dance in Baraats. After watching them you’ll probably realize that anybody can dance. The deadly gravity defying steps they perform can give Michael Jackson a hefty headache.You can watch the sample of deadly drunk dancing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz1xFaBY-Is
- Normally women eat more than men at these weddings. This is because this is the only occasion where they get to eat delicious food prepared by men and that too for free!
- The younger unmarried cousins of the couple dress heavily in order to impress the matchmakers present in the wedding. Who knows who’ll get lucky the next time?
- Almost always you’ll find a person who boasts their son’s wedding was far better.
- Beware of the photographer! He will always click photos when you are busy yawning, chewing food, making weird faces or doing similar embarrassing things. So be prepared.
- Every sophisticated man out there who is friendly with everyone is drunk.
- I don’t know about girls but men do check out women all the time especially if they are not of their community.
- In this era of selfies you will find people taking every selfie possible – Paneer Tikka Selfie, Gorgeous girl in the background Selfie, OMG it’s me Selfie, Drunk Selfie and many more.
- This happens quite often.
There is no other function out there which can reveal the craziness of people with this much perfection. Nowadays it is a trend that people attend a function just to eat free food, get drunk, soothe their eyes, bitch about others, find their perspective partners, dance, make merry and not realizing that they are here to witness the marriage of two souls and they should be enjoying that instead of being busy in their useless stuff.
Just remember, “Everything that happens in a marriage isn’t temporary, it is recorded so that it can be laughed at later.”
Abhishek Singh 
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