A sweat-inducing, groan-inciting, heated affair with interjections of excited, shy squeals at a big, fat, Bengali wedding in the middle of freaking March! (where the bride and groom were fat too, but then I don't want to get into details). On a bright, exorbitantly shiny, not-so-happy morning, our rented car arrived at the door to pick us up and drive us to destination Sodepur, which little did we know, would turn out to be hell! A raging sun was put to shame as I sashayed out of my house in my exotic, flaming red silk saree, only to be put to shame a few, sweaty, frantic moments later. As the taxi cruised, (it was more of an ignited tin box) down the fiery lanes of Park Circus, I was fretting that my eternally sweet and nagging mother would almost faint from the wrath of the sexy sun, she was so quiet.
Once, we reached destination family
wedding, ritualistic shenanigans like smothering and throttling each
other with 'halud'/turmeric began. After, a very warm round of
welcome during which I felt like a rockstar, we again had to go
through a rather dismal proceeding of large, smelly feet stomping me,
and an array of armpits smothering me and almost deafening,
hooligan'ish 'ulu'. This done and over with, the 'Ashirbaad commenced
following the animalistic pushing and shoving of rather large
'mishtis' into each other's faces. By this time, both mother and me
were flushed, baby pink in the cheeks, and needless to say,
exhausted. After burning my feet to reach the little 'tabu' on the
terrace where lunch was being served, we bathed ourselves with the
coolness of 'thanda shukto' and I merely out of vengeance on these
bombastic Bengali wedding rituals, stuffed my face with greasy, thin
'aloo bhaja'. My soul was soothed for the moment.
Next, what seemed by that time a rather
challenging “A minute to win it” sort of a show, came the big
event of the bride dressing up. Because, the house had no A.C. I
grabbed the chance to flee. The parlour, (a little too shabby for a
bridal make-up gig, had A.C. so I'm not complaining). Almost 4 hours
of tedious sitting-and-doing-nothing, I finally put on my heavy,
velvety anarkali, smeared face with bright and clownish make-up. My
sister by then, looked like a rather puffy fish, with gothic eye
make-up and a funny 'shola' crown. We took leave from the tiny
parlour, with my only bargain, a free hair-do.
Next up, was me and Bridezilla locked
up in a worn-out Omni, jiggling towards the 'Biye Bari.' The bride
started having palpitations and began speaking gibberish about how
her already registered husband might just ditch her last moment since
he did not message her sweet nothings that very (un)-fateful day.
After having to cool her down somewhat, we managed to reach within
the time of 'Mohurat' and galloped towards her throne. To our utter
dismay, contrary to the rumour, this ceremony hall wasn't A.C.(the
stinking, literally so, father-of-the-bride refused to shell out an
extra 6 grands to access the A.C.s, which were repugnantly present at
every nook-n-cranny!) So again, we were reduced to a pool of sweat
and happily bore all the pain of welcoming the 'bor' and his
battalion, smiling relentlessly for the hapless photographers and
ducking to touch the feet of blabbering, baboon'ish, withered old
relatives.
This dealt with, food stuffed
unwillingly in an even hotter environ, we waved goodbye to the bride,
groom and parents, double now and believe me, it was rather a happy
ending, rather orgasmic! Okay, wait, just the fact that we were
leaving, ha? Ask me, if I want to get married? Hell yeah, in a cave,
wearing 'bagher chhal' were I shall literally roast my relatives with
prior notice and make a grand wedding ceremony surrounding it. Take
that, bitch!
