Of weddings and wedded bliss....(part 2)

Well the big day arrives sooner than expected and ur a witness to something called –a union of 2 souls, in poetic terminology and The Great Indian Wedding in journalist-lingo.
The bride,groom and their respective parents are supposed to fast for the entire day.Poor things!! As if letting go of their single status for life ( or officially bading goodbye to the apple-of-their-eyes of a daughter,whichever is applicable), isn’t enough of a punishment that they have to subject themselves to this torture of abstaining themselves from the delicacies which are churned out at regular intervals from the wedding-special kitchen.
Fast forward to the Baraat Scene …..
Here u find friends of the groom and friends-of-friends-of-friends of the groom dancing to 1970`s dance numbers in such enthusiasm as though celebrating the line replaying in their minds - ek aur bakra jaa raha hai halaal hone !! And about the dance…ahem..the less said the better.The way their bodies convulse and gyrate to the beats of Do ghoont mujhe bhi pilade sharabi could make even Helen and of late Rakhi Sawant marvel. The dance moves are so unique that they have spawned a genre of their own –Baraat Dancing.
The same guys who haven’t had a flexible bone in their body since birth display such amazing jhatkas and matkas that it would put any seasoned Bollywood choreographer to shame.Respectable IIT grads and IIM groomed sophisticos dancing with such gay abandon, some enacting a dance sequence straight out of the 80`s flick Nagin and others hopping and twisting around as though they have ants and grasshoppers up their trousers….u have it all infront of ur eyes.
Now to the Mandap scene…
This is a personal favourite.Right from the Jaimaal thingy (which has the groom standing up ramrod-straight so that the poor vertically challenged(exceptions are rare) pretty and petite bride has to seek the help of her brothers to lift her up,to garland the groom who will now playfully bend low), to the pheras, I find all these customs very sweet and extremely romantic.Imagine having to exchange vachans like- “I promise to keep my wife very happy and give her all the pleasures in life”,”I promise to cook for my husband and be by his side through thick and thin”,”I promise to give my entire salary to my wife (yes its hilarious but true  )”..keeping our individual idiosyncrasies aside,aren’t these promises kinda cute?!! Customs like the opening of the “ hathganthi” (this is an elaborate apna-pyara-Oriya custom of the bride`s sister opening the knot which ties the bride and groom`s hands during kanyadaan, upon which she can demand any gift in cash or kind and the grooms` side is obliged to give it..aint` that cool!!) and “Shubh drishti” ( a Bengali custom in which the bride is taken around the groom in a platform kind of a thing held by her brothers and on its completion, sees the groom through betel-leaves held by her) are my all-time faves.

Now lets zoom into the much awaited Vidaai Scene (the videographers delight)…
Here you find the relatives of the Bride crying and howling with all their might at the thought of letting go of their darling beti (even though she might be moving into a house just a few blocks away).U cant help but be amused at seeing old grannys and very-distant relatives shedding copious tears for someone whom they had last seen as a 5 year old girl.More often than not the person who cries the most is the bride`s mom (to the point of fainting.Brilliant example-my mom at my sister`s vidaai) second only to the bride herself,who if very exhausted,may skip the crying thing altogether( for fear of ruining the carefully mascaraed,eyeshadowed and lined eye-makeup.Not a very good example-my sis who kept crying in spurts …u know crying for a few minutes and then getting confused whether she should keep on crying or was it time to stop and refresh her makeup).I remember my sis being reminded again and again the night before the wedding to shed generous amounts of tears so that the photos look …well very vidaai-vidaai.She knew Jiju a coupla months before she got married (they had gone through the phase of the parents-permitted-and-encouraged dating, in the intervening period between their engagement and marriage, on a daily basis) so she was pretty confused as to why was she supposed to cry so much that it would make Jiju seem to be like some Ravan incarnate, whisking her away.
One of the sweetest things in a newly married girl is the way she looks with all her new accessories in place.Alongwith the unmistakable glow on her face,a glittering black beaded and gold mangalsutra,the generously applied sindoor on her forehead, red glass bangles on her wrists at all times,toe-rings et al.She will take an hour and a half to drape a saree by herself and the poor groom has got to pretend that he is absolutely okay with this delay and mutter something in appreciation at the way she looks (even if he`s thinking “Big deal!! She used to look better in her skirts and dresses before marriage”).
After all the marriage ceremonies are over and people r done with the numerous receptions,it comes to setting up a home for the newly-married couple.This can be the phase which can be really annoying for us girls because men as bachelors are used to staying in a pigsty of a bachelors` pad.Clothes strewn about (even atop the fridge and television),shoes sometimes on the Computer table,mismatched cutlery(If there exists any,that is),brooms placed strategically near the pillow of the bed,wet towels on the bathroom floor,toothpaste tubes with their caps missing, cellotaped legs of plastic chairs, a centimeter thick layer of dust on the racks and shelves ….all of this and much more.And the girl who is just out of the cozy confines of her parents` place can often be seen to burst into a huge fountain of tears at inopportune moments.Poor girl,the shock of having to lead a life without mom by her side isn’t` over yet, that she is subjected to the most disorganized way of living and the frightening prospect of living like this for a lifetime.Well , they come to a truce (as my jiju did by giving up 2 of his shelves to my sister to stock her ever-growing stock of cosmetics and hair-accessories and keeping his displaced shirts and trousers in the drawer meant for shoes!!) and the girl comes to terms with having to keep numerous fasts for the long life of hubby-dearest and Hubby`s-family-dearest (??!!).
Life then becomes a routine.For example my Di and Jiju yet again.A DINK-Double Income No Kids- couple (currently in their 8th month of married life).Ill try to reproduce my Jiju`s Statements verbatim- “U know pinks,life has become so mundane .We get up at 7 in the morning,go through the drill of getting ready,rush through our breakfast.Then I drop her at her workplace and come to my office and prepare to work like a maniac till 8 pm till a small alarm goes off in my head that I`ve to go pick her up.We are back home by 9 and then both of us try to rustle up a decent dinner in a couple of hours meanwhile filling each other up on the day`s details.Have dinner and goto sleep thoroughly exhausted”. I say “ Jiju u guys really have a sad life.Or rather no life at all.Poor u,poor Di”.
And then Jiju stumps me with his reply- “No pinks,not at all.Sometimes domesticity may not agree with me or ur sis,but we have found a strange kind of happiness and contentment in this monotonocity.U won`t understand it right now,but the feeling of coming home to/with someone is undescribably satisfying.We are sharing our lives with each other and trust me we are loving each moment of it.”.
I look at my my sister and find her listening intently and looking indulgently at Jiju.
I guess this is what many people aspire in a marriage but very few get blessed with it.
People call it Contentment ,others call it Happiness ; I choose to call it –Wedded Bliss.

What say guys??!!