Weddings: a pain in the a**

Ours is a super small family settled in Delhi but originally hailing from Patiala( ya the peg and salwar place) in Punjab. So, it was an"auspicious" occasion of the wedding of my uncle's son for which our khandaan was going to come together after ages. We (read my mom) started preparing a long long time ago for the Big day. I've never seen my mom so enthusiastic about anything apart from her business(she happens to be workaholic). Detailed discussions on the clothes, the footwear, the gifts, the blah blah blah on blah rasam of blah function started to torment me and my brother like a two months back. I have lost count of the times my mom made me calculate the budget of our shopping. In spite of starting early, our shopping got over just one day before we were to leave for patiala. But at least the insanity was over or I thought it was. With the wedding three days away, sandwiched between a plethora of functions most of which happen to fall in the category of li'l li'l 'functionlets', we started to brace ourselves( esp. the dulha, my cousin). The series of mindless events (with due respects to the religion) kicked-off with a small gathering in the form of "ring ceremony". I was glad that my relatives had grown out of their habit of showing off and had opted for decent, simple kind of marriage, but the following two days proved me totally wrong and the wedding was a complete antithesis of the word 'simple'. Phew! I doubt my sanity to have survived through the days. There was a ladies sangeet function wherein the ladies created nothing even near to "sangeet", twas more like....ummm lets not get into that, you get the point. And then there was the day, the wedding(finally) so I,for the first in my life, took a good two hours to get ready. In weddings, nobody even looks at what you are wearing apart from some over-excited-on-the-other-side-of-60 aunties who are,in most cases, looking for a match(read catch) for their sonny boys, but still you have to look presentable right.(but honestly the preening part was the least boring, who minds looking good). Being the baraatis, we danced our way to the venue. DANCE with the heels, the lehnga and bandwalas honking around, couldn't get better! And how on mother earth can I forget to mention the most integral part of an Indian wedding; the paparazzi, the people who are running around the whole place with cameras. These people I tell you, have a major mental problem or a misunderstanding that its their wedding that is in progress or maybe they are just plain emotionless. I mean how can anyone expect a girl(dulhan) loaded with tonnes of jewelery and wearing the most uncomfortable attire to keep smiling for hours at a stretch. Duhla and dulhan are mere puppets forth them. Never hire them or better kill them all. I'm sick to death of posing for pics and i confess that i'm among people who love getting clicked(though not as much as my gorgeous friend shatanjay enjoys it). Talking of the food, It has been a bad phase for my beloved bowel, what else to expect with dullops of ghee in every damn eatable around, the people didn't even spare veg. tikka that is supposed to be roasted. I am sure I won't be able to even stand the slightest glimpse of my all time fav. shahi paneer for months to come now. And honestly the quantity of food that is wasted in these weddings is dismal, it comes to me as a shock when at one hand I hear about families in a village called sarai of varanasi dying of hunger and on the other hand I see heaps and heaps of rich food in the garbage bins in stupid weddings. All in all the wedding or rather most of these big fat Indian weddings are a big pain in the a**. Wastage of money, time, energy, resources, ideas and emotions(so much hue and cry when the girl is going just next door or something). I'm so tired, better go and catch up on my 4 days pent-up sleep. God bless the newly-weds!!!