Weddings are best enjoyed when you attend them as a guest. You can do what you like and happily play the expert critic. No one bothers you. When you are one of the umpteen guests swarming about the venue, no one in fact is bothered about you.
Such privileges don’t exist, however, for the ones hosting the wedding. And when you happen to be the groom’s elder brother, your position is unenviable.
Now, my brother and his bride-to-be belonged to different communities. From the outset the onus was on me to convince the unwilling parents on both sides to agree to the alliance. I have acquired this notoriety of being that flag-bearer for inter-community love-marriages in my khandaan . So, I play the de facto interlocutor for siblings, cousins, et al to help see their love stories to (marital) conclusion. In this case, it took its due share of time and effort pacifying both the parties. Eventually the union was agreed upon. D-day was fixed and half the battle had been won.
As the wedding day drew closer, I began running around for the preparations. Besides the logistical arrangements to be taken care of, there were these frequent cross-party skirmishes that had to be doused. Their side foresaw “gross mismanagement” in matters that were to be taken care of by us, while our side accused them of “acting like a bunch of smugs”.
What actually followed on the wedding day was the spectacle of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We failed them on their basic expectation of sticking ‘strictly’ to the schedule of ceremonies. They failed us on our basic expectation to be a ‘little’ lenient about the timelines. The ladies on our side took more time to dress up and show up at the venue than the bride herself. But that was not all that left the other party miffed.
My car had been requisitioned for wedding duty. After the ceremony it was to ferry the newly-wed couple to their new home. The task of decorating the car and getting it to the mantap at the time of vidaayi lay with my maternal uncle, or mama.
In the early hours of vidaayi , those on the girl’s side wept, bidding farewell to the bride. But the car was yet to arrive, so the party kept up the weeping. But how long can one weep, after all? Exhausted, they all sat down, waiting. The girl’s father looked disgruntled; he kept pacing up and down the street with his arms crossed. Tension was rising and still mama was nowhere in sight. Everytime I rang him, he kept saying he was only minutes away.
Finally the show-stopper arrived, in all its glory! Mama parked the car in front of us, got down and began ushering in the bride and the groom. He seemed to be in a great hurry. Holy! There was one big, gaping hole on the rear door facing us. Something sharp and pointed had rammed into my car. The ugliness of the hole overpowered the delicate flowers that adorned the car. It was our turn to weep now.
Mama sheepishly explained how a truck ferrying steel rods had rammed into the car when he tried to jump a traffic signal in his hurry.
Any which way the bride’s parents were critical of their daughter’s choice, our family and our ways; the scene that had just unfolded before their eyes must have re-affirmed their apprehensions.
I would not have been surprised had they chosen to walk out that instant. Thanks to their generosity (or perhaps it was their shock), they didn’t spurn us. The bonny bride quickly boarded the car and drove away with her groom.
It took me some time to get over the set of arduous events. In retrospect, though, and because now my car is back from the workshop, the whole episode seems amusing.
The couple is happily married now; and they better stay that way forever and after. After all, their marital bliss should be worth all our efforts, more so the efforts of my poor car.
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