This phenomenon is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that all of us have our own personal records of weddings and parties attended in a single day or night. Although we have started to put RSVP requests in our invites, there are very few who will choose to exercise this option. Anyway, in Nepal the powers of persuasion ensure that it becomes an exercise in futility.
So, it was at one of these weddings where the lack of booze and company allowed me to think about our wedding functions and how it means different things to different demographics. Their differing motivations make for an amusing, if somewhat pointless, study that cuts across both age and gender groups.
At the bottom rungs of the age ladder are the kids who jump, play around and make sure they load up on food perhaps because they have been instructed to 'eat up', as like my mum would say 'food is not going to be cooked at home'. I used to be able to boast a stomach of steel – hardened by years of hostel food – but now as an adult can only look on with a tinge of jealousy at the wonders of eating so copiously and not worrying about the consequences of weight gain or indigestion.
Take a few steps up that very same ladder and you have the young and unmarried for whom, if I recall correctly, weddings are probably more fun than for most. The boys dressed up in their suits, drowning in the latest fragrance of Axe, surreptitiously drinking whisky in a 'coke glass', and eyeing up attractive members of the fairer sex. At the other end of the spectrum there are the girls clinging on to sarees in defiance of both weather and gravity, wearing half their weight in jewellery and makeup, and like their counterparts making particularly good
use of the 'coke glass' to disguise their tipple.
I made a mental note of all the boxes that – at their age – a wedding function would tick. Food? Check. Booze? Check. Opposites to potentially socialize with? Check. The only downside I could think – owing largely due to a timely practical demonstration – is over inquisitive relatives ticking down your biological clock for you to get hitched.
A few small steps up on the rungs of the age ladder we get the young and married who are probably just coming to terms with their martyrdom. The Ma Pa Se means that the husband and wife have – much before the occasion probably decided the drinker and driver based on a coin toss between them. In my experience, the husband often gets outvoted 1-1. It is after all the reason why I found myself making these observations in the first place.
You can tell the ones like me who've pulled the short straw by looking at that amazing crystal ball that always shows us the truth: the 'cokeglass'. No deceptions there. You get what you see. We're also likely to be in hurry not least because the Mrs – wearing a decade's salary worth of ornaments – needs to be taken home safe and sound. At least I seem to be better off than the ones with kids, who are perennially being given the run around by their sugar crazed kids.
However, the ones that I genuinely feel for are the old folks. All they can do is stroke a glass of red wine (if they're lucky) for the entirety of the wedding. At their age Mother Nature would have ensured through a variety of ailments that most food is off limits. They can be seen looking forlornly at the desserts table trying to make their move before the accompanying secret service (sons, daughters and wives) get wind of their actions. It's a hard life at the top of the ladder.
Then there is the demographic that seems to be growing in numbers – The ones that look suspiciously like they have pulled a '3 idiots' and managed to sneak in just for the food. But then, who can blame them? It might be the winter and wedding season, but it is blockade season too.
Mercifully, for us overwhelmed folks, we get a brief respite from it all for a month or so. Our 'pandits', astrologers and know it alls have, with amazing foresight, done a pretty good job of giving us the wedding equivalent of a movie interval to relieve ourselves. We all need a rest before we can rediscover the charms of wedding season once again before it becomes an endless melange of flash, color and noise where the whole essence of the occasion is lost in the frenetic pace of the season. After all, we have two more months of the marriage merry go round still to go.Brace yourselves. Winter is not over.
gunjan.u@gmail.com
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