My First Wedding Experience Part2

Tweet



For those who are wondering what I’m talking about here is the recap

The dress of the bridesmaid :

It was a tricky affair to go shopping with two ladies. One my Mom who would raise her eyebrows at every price tag & the other my Aunt-mom of the would-be bride who was an expert in wasting the time of the shopkeeper, dismantling his shop, haggling with him till he was in a drop-dead condition. Yet I embarked on the journey and landed myself in the most beautiful lehanga I’d ever seen. The moment my eyes met those of the girl in the mirror draped in that exquisite piece of cloth I was in a bliss. Then I noticed the face of the not so blissful lady sitting behind me. Our eyes met, a mute war ensued & I was finally the owner of the lehanga, all 4000 of it!

The Thingy Called Makeup:

“A bride deserves to look all made-up. Why torture me?“ I whined. But my over eager boyfriend wouldn’t hear any of it. “I want you to look the best!” “Yeah, hoping for some easy riddance eh? As if some guy in the baarat would fall for me…” I muttered.

Let me tell you why this aversion or rather ignorance regarding make-up: I belong to a family where people look at your grade-sheet first before they spot your face. And if they have seen your face before in some newspaper for getting a PhD or some similar insanity, your face value increases. Nevertheless I found myself in the mall staring at a line of ‘facial kits’. From gold to diamond to chocolate, they even had a platinum one! I was so lost. But BF had done his homework & consulted his fashion diva of a sister. So the day of the marriage I was like “where is tube 1?” “gimme that towel” and to think that after spending nearly 200 bucks of my hard-earned money on that pearl kit (I looked for the real pearl, there wasn’t any ), I still looked the same!

The late Bridesmaid:

For a family who had once had to literally run on the platform in Howrah to catch the train, I think we did reasonably well by reaching 2 hours head of the groom! I occupied my seat of honour beside the bride. But no sooner had I sat down I had to get up again to make way for the guests who came up to the dais with their “fees” for enjoying the meal and the photographs of course. So I was half the time hiding behind some uncle or aunt or simply standing near the dais awkwardly gawking at the privileged dining people.

Sis,Yours truly & yours truly's insufferable sibling

The wedding begins:

After smiling around for nearly 2 hours my cheeks (whatever has remained of them) started to ache really bad. Why can’t the groom turn up soon? Did he get a whiff of my sister’s famous tantrums during hunger pangs?

Luckily he had no idea of what he was about to take home. The groom arrived dot on time but I as expected missed the welcome ceremony. By the time the marriage began near midnight, all the guests had returned home well-fed and those that remained were trying their best to show their interest in the affair. Looking at one particular uncle I was reminded of my post-lunch Geography classes in school. I could empathise with him.


I was more than excited. I was expected to untie the ceremonial knot during the marriage ritual which if I refused to do, the ritual would halt right there. A minimum sum of 5000 was expected. I’d already begun on my mental-shopping list(and pearl kits found no place in them).

My uncle i.e. the elder bro of my Mom happened to be the one doing ‘kanya-daan’. That was because the bride’s father would be too busy the entire day to carry out all the rituals. And it was a sight indeed to behold-the father of the bride dozing throughout the marriage ceremony of his daughter!

The wedding thus ended peacefully barring a few more comical moments. We Odias as well as Bengalis have this custom where the women roll in their tongues and create a weird kind of noise that’s supposed to be auspicious. But no lady in the family knew except my Granny who poor lady was already fast asleep. So mom and Aunt provided free comic relief to the sleeping people by sounding more like err.. . you-know-what’s. Thus ended the saga.

And last but not the least, going by Mom’s reports my sister bid a cheerful “bye-bye” to her parents the next morning during ‘vidaayi’!
May you remain as cheerful forever sis!