“I Do” (Do I?)

People say marriage brings spice, tears, happiness, flavour and taste to life. Personally, I believe Paani Puri does a better job at a cheaper cost :-)

 

I quite recently attended a wedding of one of my husband’s close cousin. It was an Indian more precisely a south Indian Brahmin arranged marriage. Weddings are always crammed with a plethora of emotions of all those involved in the arrangement proceedings. While for many it is a time for fun and pleasure, for a few it is a pressure surmounted on them to conduct the event in a satisfactory fulfillment. I often wonder why is there so much of noise about arranging a marriage in the Indian society. Love marriages are only a little different from an arranged one. The only consolation with the former is that the girl knows the boy before the marriage however the complexity of a marriage still prevails. He no longer remains the same one she was once acquainted with post marriage. He carries this whole new husband image about him in front of her and brings his family along with him whom she had to please besides her new husband.

I belonged to the bride’s side of this marriage I was a part of.  It was a typical arranged marriage.

Girl meets the boy in the presence of her and his parents and a few elders who are the ones who ostensibly keep showering their advices from their experiences in conducting marriages as and when the parents consult them. After a brief moment of exchanging a few words with each other probably in a little private room that these days’ so-called modern parents offer them, the boy and girl concede for the marriage. Quite jubilantly both side parents exchange the thambulam (a plate with fruits and flowers) as a sign of accepting each other as their would-be affine/in-laws. Now starts the whole drama of organizing this grand life-time event of their daughter.

 It starts with fixing the dates for the marriage; finding a suitable wedding hall at your affordability standards comfortable enough (though you cannot evade the criticism about the room quality and whining of the relatives, who stay there); followed by fixing the cook. Brahmin marriages are known for their gluttony for food. Every soul treats food as the prime most aspect in their life while all the other things ceases to exist when it comes to eating a meal at the wedding. Extra care has to be taken by the bride’s father in getting the best cook to gratify every watering mouth. Every single close associate of the bride’s parents keep pouring their valuable comments and opinion (even when not required) about each step of the bride’s parents in orchestrating the show. 

This is followed by a grandeur shopping for the bride and the groom to look their best attire on the d-day.  I just read somewhere that across the globe, India is the foremost country where weddings are conducted at a magnificent scale with abundance of money and opulence splashed in an unparalleled magnitude (am still unclear as to why so much for just “a marriage”). After fixing the purohit (a family priest), floral decoration, Nadaswaram and Mridangam (auspicious instruments played in south Indian weddings) and a few other miscellaneous expenses incurred the bride’s parents starts distributing the wedding invitation cards to their respective family members.

On the D-Day, people pour in to witness this gala event. A few come in with genuine best wishes for the new couple, while a few with a malicious contentment just like how they are struggling with their marriage come to see who are these terrible pitiable two’s who have decided to be stringed in their life together in this mysterious trap called “marriage”.  The girl is undoubtedly the cynosure of all eyes with pressure built on her to appear the most beautiful women on this earth as though she is contesting for some beauty pageant and the people who have come for the marriage are the judges.

The event progresses with a cacophony of chattering people across the hall divided into different groups. There is one group of senile grumpy visitors/relatives who are constantly worried about the respect and treatment offered to them at the marriage by the bride’s parents stirring unnecessary controversies, another a group of young bachelors gibbering about some hot girls in the hall, then a bunch of bachelorettes contemplating about when they would get married, a group of men and women discussing about how good or bad the food was and what element of spice or sweetness was missing in it, few young mothers running behind their little ones to feed them, children running around, then comes the bride’s parents filled with pride about their daughter’s marriage and a bit of anxiousness about her married life in her new in-laws place, the grooms’ parents filled with happiness for their son, a mother-in-law probably with a slight anticipation of getting a new girl in assisting her in the house-hold chores. Amidst all these chaos there is this one person seated nonchalantly next to the groom with a pile of mixed emotions spinning across her mind and heart – “the bride”. She is excited, anxious, nervous, and angry about some things, depressed about leaving her parents, bewildered. Her state is something beyond any Homo sapiens’ apprehension.

Finally- the climax of this whole wedding drama. At the auspicious moment decided by God and deciphered by a human astrologer, the groom ties the knot around the bride as the wedding arena spectacles an enormous amount of water works happening everywhere. Tears of joy flow incessantly from the eyes of the girl followed by her mother and father, the people around wish the newly married couple by sprinkling the sacred flowers on them.  As the visitors greet the parents, a sense of triumph vibrantly beams across their eyes. The groom smiles proudly because he’s convinced he’s accomplished something quite wonderful. The bride smiles because she’s been able to convince him of it. :-)

As the visitors leave the hall, the boy and the girl brace themselves to the first step in their married life.

I wish the new bride and the groom a happy married life. Hope they discover the happiness in course of time in this mystical journey of marriage!!! :-)

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” —Mignon McLaughlin