My take on Wedding Ceremonies: Then and now (Part 2)

To go to Part 1, click here.

My wedding

In Konkani weddings (and most of the south Indian Brahmin weddings), most of the rituals look more like a stage performance. The only difference is that the pandit directs you at each and every step. A simplified story goes like this:

A guy, going to the Kashi (I don’t know exactly why, some say it is the higher studies of olden days), is stopped by a man (the father of a gal of supposedly marriageable age) on his way. The man requests the guy to cancel his plan and instead marry his daughter and become a family man. The guy (should) agree without even seeing the gal. The gal, who has no idea about the guy and this conversation, will obviously disagree for the marriage. She is persuaded by her maternal uncle and she agrees. Her uncle brings her to the mantap and then the guy and the gal are facing each other but a cloth is held between them so they cant see each other. After the chanting (which look like never-ending) is over, they are allowed to see each other. The gal is asked to garland the guy first to say she has accepted him and then the guy will garland the gal. Then after another set of chanting and rituals is over, the guy will tie the Mangalsoothra (sacred thread) around her neck and they are married. Done!

In reality, all these sound kind of absurd. In my case, my husband had introduced my parents to his. So the story is quite opposite to mine.  My husband (after our engagement) used to get weird ideas on the going-to-Kashi scenario. One was that he would take a few steps towards Kashi, take a look at my dad’s side from the corner of his eye and if my dad has not started towards my husband to stop him, he would come back and start again. Another was like when he is asked to go to Kashi, he would tell the pandit ‘No bhatmaam (pandit), she has waited for me for years. I can’t leave her and go just like that you know!’ Other weird ideas about the moment we are married were like if he had a time machine, he would have it paused, moon-walk on stage, come back to his seat and then play the time machine!

When it comes to my wedding, it gets completely different compared to just attending a wedding. It is me on the stage. I get reminded again and again that I’m the limelight (something I never liked). But then it felt like why I should take it that way after all.  As my colleague had said, this is my day. This is going to be the most special day of my life. Why not enjoy the limelight! Unlike the brides whom I had watched in movies or my cousins, I was not nervous about how my future life will be and how my in-laws will treat me (I was a little nervous about that but it was negligible). Instead I was nervous about how the day would go. I knew I was clumsy. Dropping things from my hand or tripping a couple of steps is not that rare. If people are watching then it just gets worse. I can be called attention-phobic. When I asked mom for suggestions, she said ‘do what the pandit tells you to do’ which just added to the tension.

Another tension was how I would look in the wedding sari. I din want to look fat (no, not the way girls would worry about looking fat) because my husband is on the thinner side and I’m average. We have to match up to each other. He would be wearing a shervani so he would look a little fatter. He is photogenic and loves posing for pictures. It is not the case with me. Posing for pictures is not that a comfortable thing for me. Secondly when it comes to pictures on the wedding day, the photographers will ask you to stand in the poses that are way too embarrassing.

Like every other bride, I just slept for 45minutes the previous night. At 7 am we were in the wedding hall. While I was dressing up (the dress looked more like a dance costume) I was hyperventilating on how the day would go. My cousin, who recently got married, told me that feeling comfortable and behaving yourself will make you look better. It did work! I instantly felt better and my sister also told me on stage that I am not looking awkward in any angle. My head started working positively and I remembered that people close to me are coming to attend my wedding. I did not want to be like most brides so busy with their rituals that they will not even know who is attended and who is not. I was probably the only bride in the history of Konkani weddings who was sitting on the stage and waving at the people (not by lifting my arm, just from my lap-height) gracefully enough not to look awkward. And I was right. Whoever enters the hall first sets their eyes on the bride. Therefore it was easy to smile at them and still not get shouted at from pandit for not listening to him.

The signature moment was great. My three uncles and aunts brought me to the mantap. After seemingly infinite minutes of chanting, when I was allowed to garland my husband, he bowed at me as a gesture of gratitude of accepting him. I returned the favour by bowing at him while he garlanded me. Some more rituals and he tied the Mangalsoothra (now a coral chain) around my neck and we were declared married. The feeling was definitely great but it did not make us forget the hunger and tiredness of being there from 7 am. There was only one break to change into another costume and simultaneously have some food someone got for me which was not enough. The remaining rituals were with my husband. He made me feel a lot better by speaking to me.

We were lucky that the Muhurtham (auspicious time to get married) was early (at 11 am) as that prevented the photographers from clicking our photos in embarrassing poses. But the worst and the unavoidable part about wedding ceremony even in my wedding remains the same - photo session. I tried my level best to smile and greet the people whole heartedly and smile for the photos. After some hundred photos, I realized my cheeks were paining out of holding a smile for a long time. There is one photo where I am looking like I was about to cry. We knew this would continue till 2 pm. Finally we got to have lunch and head towards my house. When I was waving at my parents and sister, I could see that everyone was hiding every feeling from everyone. My cousin, who was teasing me since three days that he is too happy I am going out of my family, told me that he had teased me a lot but now he realized that he will miss me a lot. After I sat in the car next to my husband, my dad just held my hand and pressed it a little that told everything he had to say. I knew that the next time I go there; it will be my mother’s house. I was going to step in a new chapter of my life. With a few drops of tears I had not let out, I set off to my new house. Once my mom’s house was out of my sight, I saw my hand my husband had held and realized that he had not let my hand free from his from the time we were married. 

My take on Wedding Ceremonies: Then and now

Before my wedding

Being on the clumsier side(I would rather say that people around me are always over smart), wedding was a word I normally never chose to say aloud in childhood days as this topic would lead to another irritating topic- match making and I would be teased for no relevant reason. Just one question about wedding is enough and I would be flooded with questions like why do you keep thinking about wedding all the time, do you want to get married soon, is that why I don’t see you studying. I am too grateful to god for not giving me any cousins who I can get married to. Otherwise I would be teased with him like anything. Why is the word wedding introduced to us in such an irritating fashion?

As a kid, I was supposed to stick around my mom in wedding ceremonies as I will also be wearing some gold (there were too many people and it is not safe), thus preventing me from playing with other kids of my age. Otherwise I would have made friends with them easily(my mom's statement, I can speak to even a stone) and saved myself from extreme boredom and my mom from my extreme irritation. When my uncle got married I learnt that wedding changes both the guy and the gal’s lives drastically. Why should there be 1000s of people gathered for two people getting married?

As I grew up a little more, my cousin got married. That was fun. We used to comment on the people from the groom’s side as they were strangers to us and we were not bothered about the fact that we were supposed to welcome the guests by sprinkling rose water on them and presenting women flowers. We tried to distract the bride by doing gestures when she was following the pandit with the rituals. She would shout at us later but we were in our own world. From here the great saga of match-making started. And this ends only when you get married. From then onwards, attending wedding became a highly troubling thought.

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, when the weekend just starts, all the happiness is spoilt when mom says ‘tomorrow we are attending a wedding’. Grrrr!!! Throat cleared. I did not hear anything. Ignorance is bliss. And then mom says ‘I’m going alone so you come with me’. Another grrrr! And mom says ‘There’s no harm in socializing a bit. And you don’t even know your grandma’s sister’s son-in-law’s brother’s kids.’ Why do I have to know them? Anyway, my mom is an unstoppable force of nature. She was about to ask me to practise wearing a smile on my face but I was already working on it.

The best part about weddings for me is that there is a man now in his 70’s named Dev. I call him Dev maam (Dev uncle) because he likes it that way. As a kid I used to call him TV ajjo(TV grandpa) because we became friends when he came to my house and mom was preparing something for him as well as looking after my sister(a kid then) and dad was not at home and I attended him with a friendly gesture. Our conversation picked up and he started throwing general questions about TV and he was impressed by the way I responded. The next time I attended a wedding, mom introduced him to me as ‘Do u remember this grandpa? He asked you about TV at our place, remember?’.  He happens to be my grandpa’s cousin and is a very good friend of mine. His wife (who is also very sweet and is coincidentally my grandma’s cousin) often calls me Dev maam’s girlfriend (she even told that to my husband on my wedding day while wishing). He is my savoir when my mom decides to introduce me to someone I don’t know. I quickly disappear and will be busy talking to him. Mom won’t interrupt as he is an elderly person. If he doesn’t attend the wedding then I am in danger.

The giggling sisters would tell me for the 63rd time that they have seen me when I was a baby. And I would swear for the 39^th time that next time before they tell me, I would tell them that when they saw me when I was a baby, I wanted to punch them. I would even smile a bit at the thought of seeing them not giggling.  An overacting fat woman in her 50’s would come to me and say ‘Oh my god, you have grown up!’ as if she expected me to shrink with time. This comment was worse for me as at the age of 12 I was 5’4”and I never grew an inch after that. The problem is the latter part was a mystery at that time. So the comment will continue ‘if she keeps getting taller like this, how will you find a taller groom for her?’. Come on aunty. I’m just 12. I’m getting married at 27. There are 15 long years to search. Don’t you worry. I will search one for myself by then. The most common question after getting introduced is ‘What are you doing in life?’ The response to my answer is ‘Really? You look like you are going for a job.’ Then she calculates in her mind my age with that of her close relative and the most eligible bachelor according to her and decides that he has to wait a lot for me so it is a bad idea. I would smile a little more thinking that the poor guy doesn’t even know what is happening and she imagined him waiting for a 7^th Standard gal to be of marriageable age and complete her studies.

Another escape from these people is to help the old people. They end up being familiar faces as they sit in the same place and are too weak to get up even for the feast. Someone has to get a plate overfilled with all the food items for them. I offer to get the plate for them and they will not be overfilled, just what they want. They ask me again and again who I am(because they forget) and I would reply confidently because I know that they are too preoccupied with making ideas on how to get up to think about my wedding. Here we also get bonus blessings.

People rush to the serving hall the moment they are allowed to. Some are too hungry to wait. Some want to hog as much as they can so they come without having breakfast. Some come late and directly go to the serving hall without even checking if they are attending the right wedding or not.  Some are worried if the wedding halts they won’t get to have the food. After four to 5 rounds, comes our round to have food. Mom will still be busy introducing me to someone, but I’m too busy with the food to answer their questions and my mom does it for me.

The worst part in a wedding is greeting the couple and posing for a picture. There is rarely any couple out there who smiles whole-heartedly and accepts our wishes. They are so preoccupied with the pandit that even if someone comes with a smile and in a greeting gesture says ‘Dude I din like your choice’, still the guy will take it as ‘Congratulations’ and will thank him. In short, they will not have the patience to listen what the person is saying as they will be tired of listening to each and everything the pandit says.  They do not really bother that we have come. Even some of my really good friends acted weird when we came to greet them. They just gave a half smile and continued. It is very disappointing. But why would they care? There will be thousands of people and the day will be one of the most special days in their life. Not to mention they will be stressed and tired and hungry.

The whole idea of this changed when it was me getting married.

Contd.