Weddings in India

Indian weddings. Why are they grand? A very large majority of Indian families save a buck-load of their income for their child's wedding (Especially if it's a girl). Because that, will probably be the last spoon of expenditure served by these old folk to their children. Once the law of this society agrees upon them getting married, all the guests barge into the house. Some invited, otherwise unwanted. After all, I think Indian weddings become grand because of the guests who turn up. Friends and family who are present to offer blessings to the young couple is what makes Indian weddings grand. There is a simple rule: the more, the merrier. Here, the word 'grand' is not only used to exhibit the excitement of the all the peeps i.e. all the confusion, tension, happiness and grief but also the stupidity and togetherness or rather, stupidity by togetherness!

Quite recently, I attended the wedding of my close relative. Out of all the weddings I have attended, this is the only one which resides in my conscious mind. Somehow in this function, the rule shifted to: the more, the merrily disorganised! The number of rituals and traditions to be followed were countless. In order to get all of them done in a sorted manner, the pre-invited guests were put to work. The wedding house immediately turned topsy turvy! Not because there were many people who didn't want to work but because all of the people thought THEY were in charge! Me? I just sat aback and laughed off. This was the limit of chaos I'd seen in my family. Sometime later, I had ten others sit beside me and scold me because I wasn't doing the job assigned to me. Of course, I got busted eating most of the sweets and other tasty dishes! Now I think I was one of the prime reasons for everyone to think that they were incharge. Because that's exactly what elders do, you know. It's not very soon after you scold a sweeper on the deck of a ship for his inefficiency, that you start believing yourself as the captain. 

I had had quite some laughter on the journey back home. After all, I had just attended an Indian wedding!