Married, By the Way

Yours truly was invited to yet another wedding. And she went. She hogged and she returned, full.

My condition is on the upward slope. Yester-night, I could use the expensive body lotion I have bought. (Before, I was using Vicks, which was not bad. Skin used to feel soft in the morning. In fact, post observing result of the expensive’s use, self almost felt inclined to continue the use of Vicks.)

But that is beside the point.

I was thinking, what’s the big deal about weddings. Let us look at a few undertakings at an average Indian wedding. I personally noticed all of them taking place at the one where I was invited.

• The bride and bride-groom are the least informed about the goings on.


• The guests are inquiring, usually post dinner, where among the premises, are the bride and bride-groom seated.


• The bride’s thick make up, being meant really for the photographer’s ease, makes her look droopier to the naked eye, than she actually might be feeling.


• The misconception about her droopiness makes most female guests lavish her with kisses and smother her with their jeweled sarees, making the makeup look murkier.


• The groom is the only one not drunk.


• The groom is sulking, as a result.


• The groom is pretending to be gay (meaning happy).


• The groom looks gradually minus (neck plus spine), former owning to the sinking in under the weight of the pagdi and latter to the gifts which visitors from both sides usually heap on the groom.


• The bride and bride-groom are eventually left isolated, while the guests are found surrounding the food stalls.


• The bride and bride-groom are seen furtively inquiring from passersby, as to the remnant of the procedures.


• On keen observation, an answering friend or relative may be espied in some nook or cranny, gesturing wildly to communicate to the couple, the remaining number of minutes or hours of their endurance test.

I have concentrated here, on the bride-bridegroom because I feel a natural tenderness for the underprivileged. The reader may, of course, add from the guest position.

However this too is beside the point.

I started this post intending to tell you about weddings at my native place- Bengal. There it is a lengthy process. Starting a week before D Day, the bride and groom are fed constantly, and separately, by all willing members of the society. Much like chickens. The day before the marriage, the specimen are seated, and fed in unison by all members of the society, specially the senior members; separately in their respective homes. Sweets and water are heaped in obscene quantities in front of the cross legged specimen and then the social members take turns to shovel the eatables down their (the specimens) throat, washing it down with enormous quantities of water. Post this the specimens are put to bed (separately, at their mutually distanced abodes) after many short, but significant ceremonies. I have observed the average time of retirement to be around midnight. From here on, I will focus on the female. Readers please be informed that similar proceedings are taking place all along at the male specimen’s residence. There is equality in these matters.

The female specimen is dragged from her bed at about 3 30 am on the morning of the wedding, for a bath. Yes. Bath. Water-bath. After bath she is fed. All conventional food items being barred however, she is fed a random assortment of husk, puffed rice and watered curd among other things. This is her last, I repeat, last intake of food for the following day and night. Then she waits…

In course of time, dawn breaks. Family members assemble. The priest arrives. Auspicious times are discovered, and accordingly the women of the family, and interested and idle inhabitant females of the area proceed to a near-by pond to get a pot full of water. The pot is brought home and kept at a threatening distance from the specimen seated cross legged (as usual). Female members then compete with each other to smear her with a paste of turmeric and water in a ‘no holds barred’ sort of an event. Next, the contents of the pot are dumped on the specimen’s head. She is in this way bathed - twice, in a matter of hours. And then she is sent for a bath. Yes. Bath. Bath again. Water-bath again.

After the third bath, she waits…

By this time it is afternoon and family members and early bird guests have lunch. Some of them, plates full of conventional food items, queue up to meet the specimen. Starving, she pretends to be asleep or lost in thought to avoid them. The make up woman arrives and handles the specimen. By evening the remaining guests arrive making the place look like a bee hive, with guests filling in for the missing bees. The specimen is seated in a certain corner and guests start showering her with gifts and blessings. Let me remind the attentive reader, the last time the specimen ate was at about 4 am, directly after the first of the many baths. It is now about 8 pm. Guests, of course inadvertently, have eatables in their hands. As a result many times during the gift giving session, the bride mistakenly- owing to being lost in thoughts of love -moves towards the food item instead of the gift.

The groom arrives and is seated separately. Reader must have noted by now, that the trend here is to keep the couple separated. No doubt this is to aid them with a ‘we came together despite all odds’ kind of a love story for handing down to posterity. Young girls run to and fro from bride to groom telling each that the other party looks beautiful and jubilant. Both parties know that on the contrary, both must look groggy eyed and dismayed after the infliction upon them, of the above mentioned. The marriage is short and sweet. The groom is seated on a chair. The bride is made to take seven rounds of the groom, while he stares at the ground and she hides her face with beetle leaves (she is led by female members of the family.) Then both specimens stand on opposite sides of a screen and the screen is upped with a shout of joy by society surrounding them. The instinctive jumping retreat on both sides, which is the result of the specimens seeing the other’s unhappy state, is mistaken to be a joyful leap by all present, and the couple is led to the altar for a prayer to the almighty, thanking him and seeking his further blessings. It is by now at least midnight.

The couple is taken to a hawan (nature worship). All seems well to you, reader? It is, except that the groom is now in a loin cloth – one of the many mysteries of life. The invocation begins. The fire is lit and kept alive by means of ghee. Male species of my native place generally being hirsute tend to sweat profusely. Now the tendency takes over given the heat generated by the fire. This results in the female counterpart tending to faint from the odour. The couple makes rounds of the fire, sits, stands, walks and is finally, after a few hours, taken to bed followed by about 150 chaperons. You ask why on earth chaperons? The couple is not to embrace yet. The trend to keep them separate continues. The couple is given leftovers from the wedding dinner to gorge on. Chaperons make merry, crack vulgar jokes accompanied by the ‘poke’ many times into the groom’s ribs. After the fashion, the bride is to look demure and suitably unhappy with the proceedings.

Dawn breaks. Groom and bride take bath, eat (all the while kept awake by gentle nudges from well wishers) then sleep. Family members from both sides take count of the wedding plunder jointly. Evening comes and amidst general grief, the bride and bridegroom leave. On reaching the groom’s residence, the bride is forbidden from looking at him - to ensure that the story for posterity is really long and impressive. They sleep separately. Next day is the day of the reception. Bride and groom are now given leave - in theory - to mingle, but the practical application of this is far from possible with the bee hive now replicating itself at the groom’s residence. More so with some of the bees being the same. The day passes with the groom taking care of the bees and the bride continuing to look demure and suitably unhappy with the proceedings.

After the guests have departed, the couple cleans up and - hold your breath readers -is ushered into the wedding bed-room, minus - wonder of wonders – chaperons. Do they consummate? 100% of my bong acquaintances who have been married say ‘No’. They sleep. But you never know, some people may want to add one more chapter to that posterity story. ‘We did it! That same night!’

So that’s the wedding.

But this is beside the point - which is exactly my point. Nothing in a marriage seems to be 'the point'. The marriage – the coming together, of… hearts – seems to happen by the way.

PS: I must give this some serious thought one day.