Observed-Spent Sleepless Days and Written by Harish
“You are next”, the younger brother of the groom is pinched on the cheeks by the mamis. Typical scene from a South-Indian-Palakkaad-Iyer-Tamil-Brahmin (commonly called these days as Tam-Brahm) wedding.
In contrast to the other concepts, the project kicks off with a Marketing strategy — starting with taking of the jathagam, where planetary positions are the GPS to search your perfect match. You pass it like a pamphlet at others wedding, people you meet in trains, in banks, even at Sastha Preethi. Forget the ironic fact that Lord Ayyappa is a bachelor.
Then there is search on matrimonial websites. Final results are at 88.89% match, not necessary to be 100%. The photos are exchanged, the groom’s family visit the bride’s house, the bajji-kesari-idli are served with coffee. Thanks to singH brothers, anybody who is a nobody can become a singer. So there is no ”paattu pada varuma” episode here. They decide to spend the rest of the life with each other after a 20 min diplomatic, politically correct dialog.
The Procurement strategy where marriage date is fixed based on the availability of the chatram, not the other way. The catering based on the menu-per leaf, per item, per meal. The still photography, video photography, candid photography and mobile photography.
Then whom to call, most importantly, whom not to call. Whom not to call, but will know whom you called. This is where WhatsApp comes in handy. You post a pic of the invitation card to all in the groups and say, please treat this as my personal invitation. Travel tickets need to be booked. Hotel rooms need to be booked, that includes TV, AC, hot water and free Wi-Fi. Taxis need to be booked, to shuttle to station-hotel-choultry-nearby tourist attraction.
The Budget strategy — what saree to buy, what saree to give, what matching blouse, what are the matching jewellery, accessories, return gifts. Paint colour manufacturers, great painters like Michael Angelo, Pablo Picasso, MF Hussain and not so great painters like me cannot decode ‘ananda blue’, ‘ramar pacchai’ and ‘kaapi podi brown’.
All this after careful analysis of economy (where to get the cheapest) and capital (funds saved, appa’s PF, amma’s gold, personal loan, personally loaned), projected income (who will give 101, 201, and 501), finally balanced with the statement — ”parva illeda, once in life time only no !?!”. Anyways, anything not more than 11400cr. is small in India these days.
The Implementation — On the D-day minus one day, vadhyar clearly says, its early muhurtham, need to tie the thali by 7.12 am, but can be done at 7.45 am also. Only he knows all the loop-holes in the system. But they are in second place when it comes to this trick. The first place is held by the people who found the suicide note of black buck that saved the hunter, who happened to be an inventor of world’s first driverless car.
The vadhyars even considers the quantity and quality of the mantram is directly proportionate to the dhakshina received.
The delegated people to greet/welcome and mandatory to enquire about someone who has not come. Never bother about who has come. The room key-keepers, usually the reliable periammas, who sub-contract it to the chitti when they need a break. Most importantly, the treasurer which is most likely the trusted chitappa, sub-treasurer to mama.
When a relative asks you “ennada, therimaa?” whom even facebook’s face recognition system will fail to recognise must be answered by you. During the day, a range of national and international issues that get solved — discussions about the traffic blocks, North Korea’s nuclear plans, global warming, whether conductor-turned superstar-turned politician will win the elections.
The risk factors — The tailor has not given the matching blouse even at 7 AM on wedding day. All hotel rooms are fine to keep the luggage and for just a night, still someone complains about a ceiling fan in an AC room. Taxis have shuttled n-number of times and n+1 time to get the specs, someone forgot in the hurry.
After a fine lunch, a full-fledged south Indian meal, with extra curd, someone still complains about the morning coffee. After all train tickets are booked, that too with IRCTC still upgrading their servers, always the lower berth person has to adjust…always.
The day ends with gifts, tears, handshakes that are exchanged. People return with dinner packs, usually puliyogare and curd rice. For reinforcement of learning, they talk about it over the next few days, get likes on facebook after putting the selfies, show the kalyana video on repeat mode and share the album.
While the younger sister of the bride is also rubbing her cheeks in pain, her mother in the WhatsApp group of Palakkaad Iyer Mamis2 is texting — “payyan yarraavdhu irundha chollungo”.
Begin from Level1…
For the project closure…Well, as told by a wise man: May be it’s not about the happy ending. May be it’s about the story.
