Humour at the Funerals

Funerals can be unintentionally funny at times. Except you can’t laugh freely in a funeral. You gulp your laughter like your tears.  We all have attended funerals in our life where amidst the tragic situation we come across some characters who bring out humour in the serious situation without their knowledge. 

If there is one thing which stands out in an Indian funeral that’s the crying for the dead scene.  It’s more prominent in the Hindu community and specifically  in the South Indian community. It’s been ingrained in our system right from childhood that the only way to express our grief is to cry loudly.  More louder your cry, the more intense your grief.  So the book rule here is to cry till you lose your stamina and are on verge of choking yourself to death OR till there’s no audience for your performance. The different forms of crying can put a Hindustani classical singer to shame.

The Rhythmic crying : This is where the person does not have any reference point with regards to the deceased or has shortage of vocabulary. It usually starts with a high octane wailing till they can hold their breath and then suddenly dropping to a low pitch and for the rest of part swinging between high and low pitches ending with a murmur.

Intellectual crying : This person has a huge encyclopedia of adjectives for the deceased and lots of memories for reference, some digged out from the past and some freshly made up instantly with the confidence that nobody will have the guts to scrutinize the credibility of the statement.

Cry for a penny : These are  professional people. These people will cry only when they have an audience worth their salt. Sometimes people who have come to console the grieving,  get a jolt and are horrified when all of a sudden they hear this loud crying - only to realise that it’s coming from the person who has been quietly sitting behind them and has got a surge of emotions overpouring on the arrival of known people/relatives.

Chest thumping violent crying : Now these are people who arrive at the venue thumping their chest with a loud thudding noise and jump on either the deceased or the grieving person and hug them. Actually its more like grabbing them to the point of hurting them. Sometimes, I wonder if these people are capable of reviving the heartbeat of the dead by their constant thumping on the deceased. And No….any attempt to stop them or separate them from their antics will be resisted violently.  They will stop only when they are done with their performance.

If crying at a funeral comes in many forms, then the list of varied categories of people paying their condolences can give tough competition. Some of the entertaining ones are :

Story Lover : This person loves to hear a story and come what may, he/she is not going to leave the place until they have got the detailed story of the last moments of the deceased.  If the grieving person explains the same in a couple of sentences, these people can be very disappointed.  They will keep asking questions unabashedly till they have got all the information – right from the time of the event, who were all around the deceased at the last moment, their reactions before and after the event, etc.

Limelight stealer : These people are the exact opposite. They will hear out the grieving person for few minutes and then for the next half an hour will sabotage the conversation with their experiences of personal loss. Sometimes, will also end up crying more than the grieving person to the point that the grieving person will end up consoling them.   Any one entering the scene at that moment will be at a loss to differentiate between the visitor and the grieving person.

The Attendance keeper : These people have only one agenda at every funeral.  They keep tab on the attendees at the funerals. They want to know the reasons for absentism of some relatives at the funeral and also for the presence of some relatives.  They will cosy up to different people at the venue to get this information or to pass on the information.

Movie watcher : These people have come to see the performances at the funeral.  They will crane their neck and squeeze in between the crowd to have a look at the person who’s most affected by the loss of the deceased.  Then they will move their eyes capturing the entire crowd and halting their lens at any interesting visitors or activity.  They hardly talk at the funeral.  Once they have captured everything in, it’s time for them to move on.

Look, I don’t mean to ridicule or demean someone’s personal tragedy here.  I agree, there are lots of genuine people at the funeral who are shattered, shocked and grieving for the deceased.  All I am trying to highlight is that the categories of people mentioned above are not fictional. They are real and living (no pun intended).  Besides, nobody can fathom the personal loss suffered by the immediate family of the deceased.  We can only console the family but can never reach at the deepest core of the pain inflicted on the inside. It’s a lone battle. They have to fight out alone through the various stages of shock, shattering, vulnerability, insecurity, fear and the piercing pain of missing the deceased. It’s part of the game called Life set by the Almighty who taught us to love and its attachments while all along we knew quite well that even the Soul leaves the dead at the last moment.  Difficult to accept, but the sooner we learn, the better…….

Evicting my Molar Tooth

A severe toothache can be a pain in the ass.

I woke up with start as my long time companion in food digging crime started having issues with me and gave small indications to move out with his pricking pain regularly.  I am talking about my right lower Molar tooth at the end.  It has been a few weeks since he has been pestering me with his annoying pinching and coming in my way of my favorite activity – eating.  As I kept ignoring him, now he seems to interrupt me in the middle of my sleep to make me realize his importance and insists on spending quality time with him and take him seriously.  So here I am armed with a bunch of cloves, clove oil and cotton balls to combat my once friend turned foe. I try to roll a couple of cloves and squeeze the juice to keep him quiet.  He seems to be adamant and I go for the cotton ball dipped in clove oil and place it in the cavity he has created thereby burning right side of my tongue.  This seems to have worked.  The strong flavor of clove oil has made him quiet for a while. I feel a better and try to catch a few winks.  He is there again in about an hour with his persistent pricking.  I get up again, try the clove, clove oil and also pop up a combiflam.  He decides to give up for the night and I lose a few hours of sleep.  I make up the most of the remaining night to spend a hectic day at office.

                This has been on and off for the last few days.  For strange reason, this nocturnal activity for the last few days reminded of my sister trying to deliver my niece in the hospital.  My niece took 12 hours to come out in this world.  She seems to be confused on whether she should come now or wait for a little longer inside.  In the process, my sister was neither able to sit nor stand nor lie down with the persistent pain.  We sympathized with her for a few hours but later got bored, then fed up more than her.  Please note we did feel guilty.  But everybody was helpless.  Likewise, I have been sleepless for the few hours trying to sleep/lie down/sit.  Nothing seemed to work.  Even tried meditating at 1 a.m. at night.  It did give a good hour of relief.  But my sweet-turned-sour molar tooth was having a upper hand with me.

                So enough is enough.  I decided it’s time to visit the dentist for forcibly evicting the uncompromising tenant in my 32 residential quarters (though a couple of quarters are already empty !!!).  I wanted to visit my favorite dentist but he has a long list of appointments and I didn’t have the guts to bear this torture for another day.  So knocked at the dentist’s clinic just next to my building.  Had visited him once for a teeth cleaning session. He has a couple of rooms for treatment and a few clients waiting outside.  Feels better to know you are not the only one suffering a toothache. My turn comes. I lie down at the chair lowered almost horizontally. It’s such a comfortable position after a hard day’s work. Would have gone off to sleep had the doctor not entered in next few minutes.  He checked my tooth and started mentioning about trying to save my tooth and get a root canal done.  I interrupted him and told him to just extract this fellow and throw him out.  I am done with him.  He wrote me some antibiotics and pain killer and gave me a appointment couple of days later for check up before extracting the tooth.

                Now, let me tell you about my experiences with my tooth problems and there have been quite a few.  In the process, have learnt a few things about dental problems. I have done three root canals and a couple of silver fillings and lost a upper molar tooth. Actually, the molar tooth left on his own.  He had got fed up of my indifferent attitude towards him and decided to shrug himself out of me and voluntarily move out.  I didn’t try to stop him either.  How could I ? I never took good care of him.  I was more than happy to release him.  On root canals, with my three experiences I have learnt a lesson. If your tooth has been severely infected so much as even a touch brings out the pain, the root canal process – to be specific removing the root thread  is going to be very very painful process.  If the tooth is less infected, the process is bearable. Still the drilling, grinding and whole lot of abuse the dentist does with your tooth can be feel like living in a mine field during the session.  You never know when he is going to touch on a raw nerve and send shivers down your body and tears in your eyes. It was these experiences that made me decide to get the tooth extracted rather than go for root canal.

                I went for my scheduled appointment and the dentist checked and fixed next day’s appointment for the demolition and extraction programme. Next day, I was eagerly awaiting the dentist’s appointment.  Almost as if all my problems in the world was going to vanish with the removal of that tooth. There was a suppressed fear hiding inside.  But I choose to ignore it for the moment.

                I reached home  in the evening, got fresh and went to my Demolition God for the farewell ritual of my beloved tooth. The Assistant brought a pad with a form attached and a pen to fill up.  Now this was becoming scarier.  Why would they want me to fill up a form for tooth extraction.  Was that life threatening ?  For a moment, felt like calling up my home and telling my folks, to come look for me if I don’t reach home in next couple of hours. I filled up the form, signed it and gave it back to her with a expression and attitude appropriate for a 40 year old guy.

                Few minutes later, she came back and led me to the demolition venue. The same dental chair with almost horizontal position.  However, this time it didn’t seem comfortable. They left me alone for few minutes as if they wanted to make sure I am really ready for this and won’t run away mid way.  The nurse came in with a assistant announcing she would be giving a anesthesia which will make my right side of my tongue and the area around my molar tooth numb for few hours.  I wanted to suggest her to make my whole body and mind numb and do whatever they wanted to do with my tooth and wake me up when they have done with it.  But they meant business and I kept my mouth shut.  But she told me open up in the next moment and brought a injection kind of instrument near my mouth and told me to open my mouth wide.  One look at the needle and I decided to close my eyes and desperately think of something pleasant. Even Himesh Reshamaiya’s face and music would have sounded divine to me at that moment.  She started pricking and filling some liquid near the demolition area as if sanitizing the area for the upcoming bloodbath to be enacted at the venue. I kept hinting at the pain by jerking my body.  Good the people at the dentist understand sign language.  She was done in few minutes.  Told me to keep opening and shutting my mouth for five minutes.  The area would get numb and I won’t feel anything around that area. They left the ground prepared for the Demolition God to begin the combat. Lying alone on the reclined chair with my right side of mouth going in numb mode, I had to get rid of my negative thoughts arising inside me.  Thanks to Whatsapp, took out my phone and started reading the day’s unread messages (there was quite a lot of them) at the reclined position. Just as I was getting comfortable with myself, the Demolition God alongwith his team ambushed into the room and I went into the same panicky mode.  As they went about arranging their ammunitions for the demolition, I frantically summoned all the 1024 Hindu Gods and all the Gods of other religions in whatever forms and shapes for a urgent prayer meeting.  The Demolition God without so much as a hello, jumped in my mouth with his ammunitions and started pricking the boundary of my  tenant to be evicted. It was fine for new few moments till he decided to insert the needle or whatever instrument he had with him from one side of the tooth to the other side and started pulling it up with force.  The pain came back with fury.  I growled at the pain. Why growl ? Well, I could’nt scream. He had his pointed instruments inside my mouth.  Didn’t want any more damage to my mouth. He stopped for a while. Asked me whether the pain is bearable.  I said it was bearable at present.  I was hoping he will soothe me by saying something pleasant.  Instead, he told me he will have to put pressure to extract the tooth and it’s  going to pain further. Am I comfortable ? I just stared back at him and I realized – Dentists are the only businessmen who can get away by scaring their clients to death. He must have felt like God with me at his mercy.  I guess he read my mind by my expression and told me to come after a week when the infection subsides and then decide on the extraction.  I came back home.  Don’t know whether I felt happy to have avoided the extraction or sad to have come back tagging the problem along with me.

                I have a feeling now.  I would rather go for a root canal than extraction.  Have done root canal earlier.  A known evil is better than a unknown evil.  Atleast I know what to expect. So, here I am waiting for my scheduled dental visit next weekend………..

               

Lessons from my journey 36-32-36

No.  That does not refer to my physical stats. It’s the journey of my waist from size 36 to 32 and back to 36. Though the duration of size 32 waist seems like a illusion/dream which didn’t last long enough. Actually, that was a belief God gave me to prove that getting into a 32 size jeans is not impossible to achieve.  I messed it up later, that’s another story. So when anyone tries to advice me on reducing weight, I give that been there, done that look.  To be precise, I have done it and I know I can do it again.  What I need advice on is how to be committed to the diet/workout regime and the will power to do it.

I guess 90% of the obese people know how to reduce weight thanks to the internet.  The problem is commitment and the will to do it.  I still wonder how I managed to commit those three months to discipline and focus to bring about the magical shift from 80 kgs to 70 kgs………….

It all started when my Dad’s Cardiologist suggested him to a dietician to reduce weight to help him cope with the heart muscle.  So we went to the dietician Aarti Batavia for consultation. Like most  others, even I had myth about dieting.  Dieting meant less eating and depriving my body of adequate food according to me. And I had been trying to reduce my weight from ages but couldn’t come anywhere near it due to lack of commitment. I had tried gym, walking and also experimented with fasting one day hoping it might help to reduce atleast few gms of my weight.  Though have to admit, fasting was the most disastrous one. It didn’t last more than 6 hours. I was on the verge of fainting – my whole body was craving for food that my body could recognize.

                So it was amazing and convincing to listen to Aarti Batavia scientifically explain about the process of dieting and how to reach at the ideal weight. She dismissed my myth that diet meant eating less.  It actually meant eating less in more frequencies. When we can came out of her clinic, I was very upbeat about my Dad reducing his weight in next few months.  But my Dad had other things in mind. As usual, he kept his opinions to himself and was adamant that come what may he is not going to follow that crazy diet of eating mini meals every 2 hours.  He broke my fasting record – his dieting lasted for 3 hrs on first day itself.   By lunch, he was back to eating his favourite rice and coconut loaded sambhar accusing us of starving him to death by this stupid diet. Ironically, his idea of diet had led him to his death.  But I was too inspired by Aarti’s diet plan and had a hunch that it might work for me. And after few days, I was at her clinic.

                I am a typical South Indian which generally means we are economist by birth.  We always consider the cost and the benefits to decide whether we need to go ahead with a plan.  So here I was at Aarti’s clinic trying to calculate mentally the time and cost involved to knock off my excess 10 kgs accumulated over more than 10 years. It came down to 3 months and 300 bucks per session per week which roughly worked out to 4000 bucks for three months with a hope of losing 10 kgs.  Not bad.  And I was convinced by her process of losing weight.  Eating mini meals every two hours which meant I would not be deprived of food.  Her logic – your body takes 2 hours to digest a particular quantity of food, anything more than that gets converted to fat.  The game is to burn more calories than you consume. That you achieve by following  some form of exercise – walking, gym, jogging, etc… I choose walking. For 45 minutes each day.  So our plan was to get me to follow the diet and work out and check my weight every week at her clinic. The target was to knock off 1 kg every week. Thus began my race to throw off my excess baggage and finally get into a 32 size jeans.

                I know by now, you guys are desperate to read my diet schedule. Well, it just went by the Aarti’s logic of diet. She broke down my eating schedule depending on my work schedule and my hunger attacks. I started with mini meals every two hours – which consisted of not more than one spoon of oil, no coconut and no sugar.  Options were idli dosa (without coconut chutney), chapati and sabzi, sandwich (without aloo, butter, cheese and sauce), khichdi, fruits (excluding few like grapes, mango -  basically any fruit with high sugar content).  I used to have tea 5 times a day which she was generous enough to keep it at the same figure but only reduced the quantity to half a cup.  So I was having cutting chai five times a day and still not missing my cuppa of tea.  I could have sukha bhel too -  but without sev, moongfali, masala dal, aloo and puri.  The bhelwala used to feel guilty when he offered this bhel to me for 10 bucks.  He felt he was cheating me. Along with this diet, I used to walk for 45 minutes every day without fail during lunch hours in office at a nearby garden. Don’t be surprised - I was working for a government organization at that time. That was fun too.  Observing the beautiful plants, flowers, kids and also cosy couples during the walk made it much easier.

                Weight check every week at clinic included both the weighing scale and the Body Mass Index (which basically checks your relative body mass for your height).  I started seeing the results in next few weeks reducing 1 kg each week which helped me to follow the diet and walking regime more vigorously.  This routine went on well for next few weeks more and I was getting closer to my target. Then something happened one day. Got a invite for a Friend’s Wedding which meant Buffet dinner. Couldn’t avoid Friend’s wedding. It is said when a Lion tastes blood, it goes after its prey with a crazy fury. I had willed myself against going on the prowl on the wedding feast. Had decided will only eat salads and little dal and rice and come back home. But all hell broke loose when I neared the Buffet counter.

                I ate as little as possible for next few days. I dreaded my appointment with Aarti. I learnt a lesson that day on weight concept.  Your body weight reduces if you hardly eat for few days after having a feast. But your BMI doesn’t hide it.  It’s like Raja Harishchandra – always speaking the truth. My weight had reduced but BMI had increased. I didn’t have the guts to spill the beans. She smelled something fishy. She asked for my diet book (this was a book she had told me to maintain to write down each and every thing I ate and I was very honest when it came to that). She started reading my book for the preceding week.....She was fine with the first few days……...then came the day of my holy sin. It went something like this:

Breakfast : 2 Dosa

Lunch : 2 Chapatis and sabzi

Dinner : Salads

                Dal and three spoons of rice

                1 cutlet + 1 more

    2 Puris + a bowl of Paneer Makhanwala

                2 more puris

                1 Gulab Jamun + 2 more (by now she had taken out the foot ruler for hitting me)

                Bowl of Ice cream with choco sauce

                By the time she finished reading, I was looking like an innocent puppy who refused to accept the mischief he had committed. She gave me a stern look and then a smile which was more dangerous considering she was going to give me the diet schedule for the coming week.  As feared, she gave me a diet of only Dal and 2 chappatis for lunch and dinner for the coming week.  By the end of that week, I had fallen in love with dal. It seemed to be the most comforting food for me. Psychologists would have called it the Stockholm Syndrome. But it did bring out the required results, I lost 1.5 kgs by end of that week.

                Then, there was the fun people had at my expense for eating every two hours during the whole day.  My office colleagues used to come and taunt me whether I was trying to reduce weight or gain weight. Also, when it came to fruits like cherries, I had to eat only 150 gms of it and the fruitwala couldn’t give anything less than 250 gms.  So my office friends used to grab the remaining 100 gms of cherries sometimes even encroaching on my 150 gms. But it was fun eating every two hours.  Trust me, some days, my stomach would feel full and by evening I wouldn’t mind missing one or two meals.  Aarti even taught me to make simple veg soups which was yummy and easy to make (just boil vegetables of your choice with little water in cooker, cool it, grind it in mixer and boil it again with pepper, salt and coriander leaves and serve hot) and kept my stomach from growling for solid foods.

                The only trouble was during those three months, there was two meals being cooked at my home – one  for myself and other for the rest of the family. They refused to be part of my diet plan except the veg soups which they relished to finish off.

                Though I was almost reaching my target I didn’t realize the difference that much until people started commenting and asking me about my secret to the reduced weight.  Some of my friends admitted later on that they even gossiped initially doubting and attributing my lost weight to my contracting AIDS.  Our target was to bring my weight down to 67 kgs.  But at 70 kgs I was looking too lean and Aarti told me stop as any further weight loss would not look good on my body frame.

                So at 70 kgs, I realized I could get into 32 size jeans and I went shopping for 32 size jeans like a child who got permission to pick up his choice of toys. It was such a happy feeling to get into those jeans. I felt more confident and energetic.  Aarti gave me a diet which I had to follow for a lifetime including the workout of 45 minutes everyday. It wasn’t difficult and I could manage that for few weeks. One of my friends once advised me during that phase not to throw off my old clothes, I might need that in few months. Ironically, he was nasty yet right.  Don’t know when I went overboard with my diet but ended up piling more fat than what I had began with.

                My struggle for ideal weight goes on.  I guess that’s one motivating factor that’s going to permanent in my life. Like they say, sometimes the journey is more interesting than the destination itself.

               

               

2 States of Minds - The Conflict goes on

I came out of the multiplex with a very funny and at the same time poignant feeling after watching the movie “2 States” even though I had read Chetan Bhagat’s book on which it is based, as most of his fans have. Funny – if you happen to observe all the main characters in the movie as an outsider.  Why ? Well, they all knew what’s best for them, but were trying too hard to make everyone happy except themselves. Poignant – if you could relate to any of the characters in the movie which I am sure many of us could – whether ours was an arranged or love marriage.

So what’s the whole issue with the great Indian Marriage melodrama? - We are suffocatingly attached to our families.  We don’t realize that even God cut the umbilical cord between the mother and the baby as soon as the baby is out in the open.  It’s a message from God that the baby has a life of its own. It’s no longer a part of your body. Let it live life on its own terms. Let it learn from its mistakes.

I guess Kahlil Gibran had best described a child beautifully in his book “The Prophet”.  He says every child has a soul and life of its own.  We are just a medium through which they enter the world.  We don’t own them nor do they belong to us.  Our purpose is served by bringing them into the world.  At the most, we can guide them in their life.  But the final choice is theirs to make.

But in India, our baby is our baby as long as we live or the baby lives. Children are our only chance to redeem our mistakes of the past.  And when it comes to marriage, it’s easier to get the approval of your life partner.  But a herculean task to get the same from their parents. So, let’s analyze the circus which goes on within all the characters involved in a typical Indian marriage story – arranged or love – the story remains the same.

The Boy – Boys are the most pampered in Indian Community.  So it’s no wonder unlike girls, boys get to see two sides of their parents in their life – one before marriage and one from the moment they decide to marry a girl. The parents who believe their baby is a responsible, well mannered and mature child, suddenly overnight becomes a irresponsible, careless, immature child as soon as they fall in love or insist on marrying a particular girl even in an arranged marriage. For the boys, what matters is they want to spend the rest of their life with the girl of their choice. Ideally, this should be enough.  But our upbringing is manipulated in such a way that we carry a burden of all the sacrifices during the 25-30 odd years spent on us by our parents which makes it obliging on our behalf to ensure that we keep them happy for the rest of their life.  No insurance company can beat this.  So here, the boy has to ensure that he makes his parents approve of his choice (that too happily).  And even after marriage, the boy has to balance the scales of his life with the eternal question which not a single God has been able to answer : who is right in a domestic conflict ? – the woman who dominated the first half of his lifetime or the woman who might dominate the second half. Smarter boys escape answering this million dollar question most of the times and other times, go with the answer which will bring relatively less mental assault.

The Girl  -  Most girls grow up accepting and sometimes manipulating the restricted lifestyles written for them by their mothers.  Fathers are their hero and they live in the illusion that he will agree to any thing they ask for or demand.  The bubble goes bust when it comes to making a decision for their choice of life partner. This is one decision no father is ready to accept. So  when a girl falls in love, she has to not only get her parents approvals to avoid the humiliation her parents might face at her rebellion but also to get her in laws approvals to enter their world.  And I agree unlike the boys, girls have a tough time doing this as they have to spend rest of their life in their world. So they need to ensure the relationships are built strongly rather than just created. After all, she can’t stay with strangers all her life.  Also, she already has the pain of leaving her parents after marriage. She doesn’t want to add to it by leaving them unhappily.  If you have seen the swing act in a circus, you could relate to a girl’s dilemma – the act involves the girl to let go of the swing she is holding on to and catching the swing which is offered to her. She has to do this with precision and accuracy and most importantly with the strong belief that the guy who is offering his hand to hold her is going to hold her firmly and safely land her to the other side.

The Parents – In India, the children are not children, they are possessions of the parents.  Their biggest obsession in life is to have the right to decide the life partner for their children. I mean, no parent has been able to give a justifiable reason for this obsession.  They say, they know what is right for their children.  The generation gap between parents and children are around 25 years to the least.  How can the parents decide for their children when they don’t even understand their children’s music, fashion, ambitions and lifestyles.  The law gives a 21 year old the right to marry which means he has the ability to decide his life partner.  Isn’t it demeaning to belittle children’s intelligence when you rubbish the law.  In fact, parents never decide on their own what’s best for their children.  They always do the society test to decide – what will the society / relatives say, whether this will go down well with the society.  They fail to realize that at the end of the day what will matter is the happiness of their children. They bring the undeniable and unchallengeable justification – they sacrificed their life for their children.  Agreed, but do they really want to sacrifice their children’s life for compensating their sacrifices ?

I guess we all would agree here that no matter who decides the choice of life partner, the success of the marriage is going to be depended on the two parties to the institution – the boy and the girl.  We all have seen that arranged marriages do not guarantee a success.  For that matter, neither does love marriage.  Actually, it doesn’t depend on how you married or who you are married to.  It all depends upon how far you are ready to go to make it work. It’s the biggest gamble of life.   Take it or leave it.

Of Cocktail Weddings and Feast...

It is said that the people, their culture, food and attire reflects their linguistic identity in India. Can’t say for other states or cities, but Mumbai where I have spent each and every breath of mine (except for the momentary days of travelling for vacation) doesn’t follow the rule here.  Especially, when it comes to marriage ceremonies.

                I recollect attending weddings in my childhood where I used to prepare my taste buds for the traditional delicious food awaiting me at the wedding feast.  If it was a Maharashtrian wedding, you would expect the sit down lunch fare served in steel thalis with vatis (bowls) and spoons where the servers served the dry batata bhaaji and 2 more varieties of sabzis (depending on the season), achar, papad, fried savouries like onion/batata bhajis, jalebis.  Shrikhand and puris were a must in Bhramin weddings. Then there was the hot steamed rice with aromatic lentil dal but not before a spoon of ghee is poured over the rice.  You enter a Punjabi wedding and come out loading extra calories from the paneer kadai, chole, bhaturas, jeera rice and dal makhnis.  I remember Sindhis were the only community at that time apart from Muslim community who had non-vegetarian food in their wedding feast. And we South Indian Madrasis……hmm……we had our banana leaf spread out with avials, poriyals, pachidi, appalams and rice with sambhar, rasam and vatta kulambu (tamarind curry) finishing it off with jaggery payasam / pal payasam.

                Somewhere after liberalization which opened the gates for entry of multi national corporations and influx of job seekers from around the country into Mumbai, the varied ethnic communities were thrown together like the fruits in a cocktail drink and the result – the best of the ethnic communities emerged and took over the buffet counters in the weddings. The food menu in a wedding buffet silently, through trial and error modified the wedding feast to come up with a standardized menu which satisfied the taste buds of the multi ethnic working class wedding attendees. So, we had the northern Indian dishes like kababs and tikkas, paneer makhanwala, Veg Kolhapuri and shrikhand from Maharashtra, the side dishes like dosas and uttapas from south, going cross borders as far as Italy to include pastas, Chinese and continental dishes.

The desserts wore the patriotic feel of the India pridely showcasing the sweet tooth of the nation with Rosgullas from Bengal, Gulab Jamuns, Rabdi, Basundi from North and without any ethnic identity dishes ice creams and fruit salads.  New additions included Chinese counters, South Indian counters and Continental counters at the lavish wedding feast to cater to the taste buds of the new cosmopolitan population.  Some South Indian weddings still carry on the tradition of the banana leaf feast with odd inclusion of puris and Veg kurmas for the non-south Indian wedding attendees which in my personal opinion, ruins the whole flavor of the tradition south Indian feast.  Its looks like fusion of carnatic music with bhangra beats – neither here nor there, totally out of place.

                If food made a dramatic changeover through these decades, the wedding costumes too went through fashion mela changing the face of wedding albums. But here, the North Indian and Western look took over completely.  While earlier we had the groom’s Dark suits and bride’s Sarees or the traditional wedding attire which dominated the reception stage, we now see a variety of options dominated mostly by the North Indian attire – Sherwanis, Bandgalas, Lehengas, Chaniya Cholis and so on.  Not only the bride and groom, also the immediate families go all the way giving competition to the bride and groom in the costumes department to the extent that sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the bride, if she happens to move away from the stage into the crowds.

                Even the rituals have crossed over the cultures, for example, the sangeet ceremony – the traditional pre-wedding music and dance fest – a tradition prevalent in the North has been squeezed into the South Indian Wedding ceremonies, though just an initial beginning. I guess the orthodox south Indian community is still trying to cope with the unabashed forcible entry of this event in their marriage venue.

                Also, with the high disposable incomes with the Gen X, the albums, the venue ambience, the props have gone from decent to grand look giving the bride and the groom, the dream wedding they used to watch in the movies in their childhood. Even the wedding invite mail comes with a link to a website giving a brief introduction to the bride and groom and their families with detailed wedding schedules.  

                If there is one part of the Wedding ceremony which has remained the same and has held its ground in the face of the changing environment, it’s the ritual of tying the sacred wedding knot.  We still have our Pandits to preside over the tying of the nuptial knot, the Father in the church to make you take your wedding vows and the maulvis to finalise the wedding agreement.  I guess, we are too god fearing to mess with these rituals, your married life is at stake here. Some may point to the registered marriages in court to prove this wrong, however, I know for sure, for every registered marriage, there is a family pooja (satyanarayana) or whatever which helps to redeem the by-passed rituals.

In the end, what matters is, to understand that marriage is a celebration – of new beginnings and family occasion to mingle and re-connect. It doesn’t matter if it’s celebrated in a multi-ethnic culture, the idea is to have fun, frolic and rejoice in the union of two souls who carry the family torch into the future. So go on…….. gorge on the wedding feast and dance your way to the latest bollywood beats……………