Wedding Woes

No, no, no... Please do not get confused that this blog is about a harassed, hysterical, hypochindriacal husband. NO! This blog is about the wily relatives and the innumerable Machiavellian Uncles and Aunts who plot ruthlessly with rather sinister minds on how to get the other unsuspecting free birds into the caged institution of marriage!

(Before proceeding, some disclaimers:
• If my mom is reading it, “Mom, I am not against marriage.. you can continue your girl hunt!”
• If my uncles and aunts are reading it, “Why on earth are you reading my blogs? Please go out there and find some eligible bachelors and spinsters!”)
• Some of the thoughts are suitable for mature audience. So if you don’t consider mature enough, then please get of here!
• I respect elders. This blog is for humor only. So, please don’t consider that I am horribly ill-mannered, irritating, iconoclastic nut-case.

The background to this post is the chat that I had with my cousin yesterday. You see, she is a trained Bhratnatyam Dancer – and a really good one too. In the invitees list were her class-mates, the other dancers.. I attended her marriage after a very long gap. The previous marriage I had attended was when I was in 7th standard – so I was way below the radar of the potent preying eyes of uncles and (mostly) aunts. Uncles are generally a good breed. Introduce a nice topic like cricket or politics and they’ll forget about the other unimportant artefacts of life.

So, coming back to the wedding, what happened was this. Since I was being seen by my relatives and relatives’ relatives after a long time (about 10 years to be precise), it was a painful process of recognition. It would go something like this:

“Aiyyo! Who are you?”
(Well, I ain’t no gate crasher!) “Aunty, nanu Raji maga” (Aunty, I am Raji’s son)
“Ooh howda!” (Oooh is it?) “Last time I saw you, you were this high!” The hands will be dangling something like 38.75 cms above the ground level. Please don’t ask me how I got the precise measure. It is like the estimation of projects that we do – a lot of research with a final touch of gut feel.
Anyway, so coming back. The next set of question follows:
“So, what are you doing?”
Actually, I am not doing anything, since you are taking up my time!
“Aunty, I work in Cognizant”
“OOOhhh. Why? Did you not get a job in Wipro, Satyam, TCS or Infy?”

Aunty thought process: If you don’t work in the companies above, you must have been one loser!
“So where do you work?”
“Hyderabad”
“So you know cooking?”
“Yes”
“What do you cook?”

So there I am being interrogated by this toothless aunt, wearing about a ton of gold jewels while this stunning sexy nubile girl walks past us. Her scent takes my breath away, but, the aunt is in no mood to relent.

There is a deluge of questions on my culinary skills next. In olden days, us guys were not supposed to know cooking. In the modern times, it is better or else, you’ll have to shell out crores dough on your wife’s calls to her mom, every time she attempts to create an article of viand suitable for (mostly dogs and) husbands.

Anyway, so, there I am stuck with this bald-uncle looking down upon me and an aunt questioning me about my cooking habits while there is a group of this sexy ladies all flirting around. What a life!

So, once this interrogation is done, the aunt’s database is updated. I am now on the list. Next time she meets someone, she’ll start with, “Oh you know so and so’s son? He is so good!” Well, in 5 minutes how did you know I am good? Or bad for that matter?

Now that my mom is into the mode of girl-hunting, she’s coming in contact with more and more aunts and the pedestrian statements. The most heard statement being,: “You know this girl? She is so beautiful. I think she is the ideal match” Strangely, every girl will be really beautiful and everyone will be ideal. When the photo does arrive, it is entirely another matter that most of the times, my mom will look younger than the girl in question. (Mom, it is not derogatory, think of it as a cynical compliment!)

The biggest mystery in life with this is, how is it these white-haired, barrel-sized, bull-dozer mannered aunts and uncles get to see all the beauties? When we guys struggle with traffic, brave the heat, perform such great sacrifices like shaving on a Saturday and going to places like Imax and still fail in spotting beauties then how is it that this really irritating, interrogative aunt’s get to meet the beauties? Either we guys don’t know where to look or someone’s lying! I think it is one of those questions that should come on the Conspiracy Files on BBC or should be the next topic of a Dan Brown novel. Maybe, he can call it as Angels and Aunties! (Please note the transcription of Angels and Demons to Angels and Aunties is a pure coincidence. No harm intended whatsoever! Muhuhahahaha! )

And so, on this day in the wedding, I somehow get over one round of interrogation when some other relative catches you and the deluge of questions follow. And the girls around move away.. and I am stuck explaining about why I am still (rather still was in) India even after having been working for 2 years...