The Big, Fat, Indian Wedding

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 3 May 2013

Attending AN Indian wedding is like living a delirious dream, or in Bollywood terms, it is like partaking in a Karan Johar blockbuster stuffed with glitz and glamour.

 From sober settings and modest marquees, our wedding milieu has now become theatrical, involving a curious, yet engaging, display of money and mirth. Opinion is deeply divided over the need to be ostentatious in our personal celebrations, and I leave it to the idealists to spar over it and arrive at a conclusion. Today, I would confine myself to incidental things about the Indian wedding, reliving the amusement that we get so little of these days, thanks to our distance from home. I may be excused if the references seem tilted more towards women, but it is inevitable in the current context.

It isn’t important who is getting married. What’s relevant is whether you are going to be in the cast, and should you decide to be there, no marks for guessing who the central character in it will be. You! That much is undisputed. So you need special costumes and jewellery to grace yourself with. The ones that have been hibernating in the closet either don’t fit or they have already been displayed at weddings and family gatherings. Who said people don’t remember what you wore on a certain occasion many years back? There is sufficient record of it in every home, courtesy of digital cameras in every pocket worth its size.

So you arrive at the venue and step on the carpet, the choker necklace or the Band-gala sherwani doing exactly what they are designed to. Stifled, yet in control, you traipse down, feeling like a celebrity on an Oscar night minus the media fever and flash. You imagine that all eyes are on you. You can’t afford not to imagine, for you have invested heavily in your looks.

Inside, there is a galaxy of stars outshining each other — men fidgeting in their suits and sherwanis, women fumbling with their sarees and stilettos, and children, oh so garishly cute! There is a ceremony taking place in the middle, but you can barely see anything, for shutterbugs and videographers have invaded the space. So you settle in with a group in a circle and catch up on things. Men discuss stocks and work, and women, everything else under the sun.

It is time for the main event and you are handed flowers to shower on the couple. You throw the petals from where you stand and they fall on the polished pate of a man three rows in front. Everyone has blessed everyone around with flowers and dry rice. There is a man at the far end who is not blessed, for he is caught in Sudoku. Some people can be oblivious to even earthquakes. Blessed souls!

There is a snaking line waiting to greet the couple and hand them a lifetime’s worth of unwanted presents. There is a spot discussion within your group on who’s giving what and you are smugly satisfied. Some hurry to shove extra currency into their envelopes. Together you decide to have the meal first. The buffet is too elaborate for you to decide on your fare, so you ask around for what’s delectable, palatable and avoidable. Someone quips that he has had better food in the dhaba in his neighbourhood. Half filled and half empty plates get dumped and everyone departs with ambivalent stomachs.

A month later you receive a pile of pictures in your inbox and you painstakingly sift through them to find a snap or two that feature you. Feeling mightily pleased, you save it for posterity as a record of your ‘esteemed presence’ at the extravaganza.

P.S: We shall talk of the gross, superfluous nature of our wedding ceremonies another time. For now, let us just be a little frivolous and foot loose. Come on, it is not necessary to be staid and strait-laced all the time!