Monday 18 November 2013

After effects of Shaadi

The dust has settled. The guests are gone. The Thank You calls have been made. The maids have been satisfied with enough 'Bhai ki shaadi ki mithais'. Now is the time to reflect upon the last few months that went in making an Indian Wedding a perfect one!

I am not implying that we had a 'perfect' wedding, but the whole point is that no matter what you do- A wedding can NEVER be perfect. And that truly IS the real beauty of it. I was not supposed to write this post but you don't know how much pressure I have upon me to write it. The regular consumers of my blog who met me at my brother's wedding (held on 10th November-This year) told me they await a sequel post on an earlier one where I had merely forecasted the likely repercussions of organizing a wedding. So here they are- the truths behind everything we anticipated, everything we were prepared for, everything we weren't prepared for and everything that ought to happen as weddings do not happen between two individuals- they happen at various social levels!


1) Sending invites is the most thankless and risky part of the entire game. First you need to collectively decide WHO all are important and then you need to collectively convince each other why the one who are UNIMPORTANT are actually so. This is the time you come up with logics like- "Oh he didn't invite me in his cousin aunt's grandson's mundan, so its okay to drop them from the list!". 

2) Continuing with the invites, all those who make to your-To be Invited- list then start acting pricey and possessive with their postal addresses. You ping them, remind them, urge them, request them- they will not send you the addresses till it is too late for the courier companies to reach their doorsteps. Oh and if you have asked them to give you addresses of their extended families- be prepared to beg forever!

3) There are always at least three things that we 'leave' to be done closer to the date and when we get closer to the date- those three things are not done as we do not have enough time to do them.

4) The vendors providing you services like band, baaja and bistars are the lot that have some typical traits: 

Six months for the wedding- "Sab ho jaayega Sir"
Four months for the wedding- "Badi jaldi macha rahein hai aap"
Two months for the wedding- "Phir aa gaye aap?"
Two weeks to the wedding- "Aap Kaun?"

5) Wedding jitters aren't natural, they are man made. If you attend a party month before a wedding in your house and you are having a good time, the society conspires to invoke jitters in you. They corner you and ask- "How come you look so relaxed? Preparations are done?". That is when you start feeling guilty if you are truly a fool to be enjoying life so close to the big day!

6) Emotions again are man made. Of course they are natural first but see how they are man made: Every time I went out shopping for myself and the shopkeeper came to know that I am the groom's sister he would say- "Dulhe ki behan hain aap? What will people say if you wear such a light color? You must look like the Dulhe ki behan!". Now you come back home and emotions consume you. You pick up your phone and type a Whatsapp message to the Dulha saying- "I am so happy you are getting married"

7) At all the functions you have a smile that sits on your lips. That smile is meaningless. It is so cosmetic that even biggest cosmetic companies cannot package it ably. Along with that smile another thing that doesn't leave your lips is the word- Thank You. Either people are congratulating you or complimenting you. I am so embarrassed to share that a couple of times when I met people at the functions I started greeting them with- "thank you....." realizing that they had neither congratulated nor complimented. But being a creative person I quickly added- "....for coming"

8) There is not just labor that is going in to make a perfect wedding, I realized that there is also blood! The real after effects are more physical. A limping husband, a bruised son, a cold infected self are just some of the things I can mention.

9) They say that you come to know who really care for you at the low points of your life. I say if you want to know who all are the people who truly stand by you- host a wedding. I am so glad that today I know exactly who are the people I will never leave in their good or bad times. So what if we realized that such people are actually countable on fingers- at least we know WHO they are :)

10) I know that managing relatives as guests is a huge task and as part of that hugeness- I am not touching that touchy topic :)