If you were to judge someone’s acquaintances based on the number of wedding invitations that person got, I’m sure my family would be in the top ten. We get to visit so many weddings every year, and I can’t figure out whether it is a bane or a boon. Most people don’t really care about this, but this question has been haunting me forever.
In the last few months, I’ve attended quite a few weddings and I can very confidently say that the madness hasn’t really gone away. I’ve already described what a big fat Indian wedding looks like. I can still go on to rant about the weddings. I can’t decide what is more harmful, spending a lot in weddings or spending a lot on useless stuff in weddings?
There are three things which make a girl go nuts – chocolate, sale, and marriages. This article is all about the third one. There is something mystical about this word that I haven’t been able to fathom. A wedding is supposed to be a special event in one’s life. The mere idea of spending one’s life with someone special is beautiful. Instead of adding amazing moments to this, people resort to crazy ideas. I don’t know whether you people know about this or not, but a few years back there was a trend of using helicopters in a wedding. The groom used to arrive in a helicopter. See, even NDTV did a coverage on this piece.
Seriously! A chopper! There are only a few things in this world that can match Raga’s level of intellect. This is one of those. I can’t understand what drives people to an extent that they do such stuff in their marriages. This is similar to the YOLO concept set in the pretext of marriages.
1991 was the year of liberalization for us. India as a country saw many reforms whose fruits we’re reaping even now. Post liberalization came globalization holding the hands of its consequence, modernization. This younger sibling of globalization has affected us the most. Earlier, it was a way to reform the ill and the outdated, now it an excuse for every stupid thing you want to get accepted in the society. Batman rightly said, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.” Modernization, in society’s reference, is on its way to become a supervillain.
Earlier, family members used to greet the guests on the entrance. Now, foreigner girls greet you before the family members. Why? I don’t know. Maybe that’s our way to humiliate Britishers? After greetings, you step inside and you can smell the perfect blend of all the spices that are enough to give a foodgasm. (That’s orgasm, just more nutritious.) And at that exact moment, your face muscles beautifully reflect and accentuate your mood in the form of a smile that accompanies you to every food stall. While you’re trying to decide which stall to gorge upon first, some girl will arrest you in her charm and you wouldn’t even try to bail yourself out. You’ll try to figure out a way to talk to her. However, there’s a risk involved in that. What if that girl turns out to be your long-lost cousin? Considering the size of my family that’s quite possible. So I don’t spend too much time on this.
While you’re trying to devour all you can, someone is murdering all the dance forms on the DJ. I myself am a murderer in that respect. *grin*. In school, we’re taught that when water is boiled, its molecules gain energy and they vibrate faster and collide with other molecules. In turn, they transfer their energies to other molecules. And if you heat the water long enough, it boils.
Now if you may please replace water molecules with hyper excited aunties and uncles you have a crystal clear picture of what happens on a DJ before actual dancers hit the floor. If you let drunk uncles dance for long, they’ll end up hitting someone. This someone can either be their sister-in-law or the DJ itself (because apparently he didn’t play the song requested). This, my friends, was the perfect analogy for the homonym – hit. Yes, I know I’m a good teacher.
However, you should note that very few uncles can bear the excitement vested in those aunties on the dance floor carrying truck hauling torque.
There’s a ceremony before the wedding, wherein the groom and the bride exchange garlands. In the pre-modernized era, they did that and then other rituals followed. In early modernization era, the couple’s friends used to lift them up in order to resist the exchange, so that finally they can exchange garlands. Oh, wait, what did I write? Nonetheless, you’ve witnessed it yourself and you know what happens. Now, all this is history. The way that lifting of couple ended in some cases revealed the vulnerability of the new ritual. But now, we’ve rectified the process. Humankind has broken all the barriers of innovation, they’ve reached new heights of creativity and have truly realized their potential. Now, the couple has to climb a raised platform designed especially for this purpose. Some creative people even design the platform in the form of a rose bud. When the couple stands comfortably on the platform, they cover them up with the big petals. Wait, there’s more. After cutting off the couple from rest of the world, they rotate the platform. No, seriously, they do it. What if the guy has motion sickness and he pukes the moment platform stops? Can anyone tell me why do they do it? However, all this arrangement was so fascinating that at one point I thought that this bud was actually some rocket kind of thing.
I get a bit pessimistic when it comes to weddings. People either find happiness in chaos or they can happily ignore all that is happening. I, on the other hand, see the accelerated increase in entropy. I may have only mimicked the shortcomings of the wedding, but I do realize that it is a big day for the couple and they do enjoy it. And I guess this is the most important thing that matters. Everything else is pointless unless captured by the videographer.
There is also something queer about the videographer. How he finds solace in filming guests devouring food is something beyond my wits. Then there are the judgemental eyes who constantly assess every gol gappa you eat. There is a constant war going on at the naan (Indian bread) stall. You can actually see the sense of victory on one’s face when they return victorious with that bread!
For me, the only thing that makes marriages bearable is food. That’s the best part about any event. Food is happiness unless a videographer spots you and then you’ve to pose with your plate. This is so irritating. The look on his helper’s face is enough to send you on a guilt trip.
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| That’s me, in every marriage. |
Marriages are mad houses. Every marriage is more vibrant than the other. However, all this won’t change the fact that marriages let your innermost crazy self free, and what happens after that is captured and later laughed off at family gatherings.
Abhishek Singh 
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