The Day After (BH:29)

September 1, 2011

Yesterday during the wedding, I got a chance to talk to Parvati aunty, Amma's friend. She works in Bangalore now and has always been encouraging about my literary misadventures. I told her about this journal. She was keen to read it. I told her it needs a round of editing, censoring and selective information blackout before it gets to Amma and her friends. Will have to take up that project soon.

Today was another day of wedding related activity. As soon as I woke up, I downloaded a pdf version of Paramasiva Iyer's The Riks for my astrologer uncle. This book originally was priced four rupees in 1911. The 4 rupees of those days is worth a 1000 today. Though this book is legally free online, some publishers still sell hard copies for prices ranging from Rs. 150 to Rs 1500.

The 32 GB USB drive he had given me was corrupted. Formatting also failed. I told him that I will write him a CD later. This uncle seems to have written my 'jatakam' (personal horoscope) based on my birth time. He has given it to Amma who refuses to show it to me. Well, she hasn't refused outright, she keeps semi-ignoring me and postpones it every time I ask. Achan told me that three major revelations have been shared with him by Amma. Apparently, I will get married in this life despite my deeds in the past lives as amoeba, bacteria, centipede, house-fly, leech etc. Achan didn't have any details whether it will be a gay marriage. 

Secondly, and much more seriously, this is going to be an inter-caste marriage. This explains why Amma doesn't want me seeing the jatakam. She must be reasoning that seeing my intercastexistential destiny might inspire me to seek out out-caste girls. I think this is also why she has been very relaxed about the parade of young Nair girls at the wedding. 

Third revelation: I have a tendency to suffer from diseases of the lower abs. I assume this means I should stop worrying about the bottom cuts of my future six pack. They are not in my destiny. This prediction explains why Amma has been asking me to eat more bananas which are supposedly good for digestion. She must be just as concerned about this bit of horoscope as she is about my breaking of the caste barrier.

Had to rush to the railway station this morning to drop off one of the wedding guests who had come from Mumbai. Today being Ganesh Chaturthi, there was an old elephant being forced to stand beside the heavily congested road in front of the railway station where there is a Ganesh temple. The railway station was crowded.

Some engines were being shunted. Aircraft are magnificent engineering marvels, but there is something impersonal about their finesse. Railway engines are rugged reminders of hardcore engineering. It is impossible not to stare at the full metal glory of a super heavy engine driving by. There is a coach factory in Tamil Nadu in a place named Erode that must be pronounced as E-road. Most engines serving in south India carry this place label. When one sees the word 'erode' written on a railway engine, it confuses the mind.

Just as I was typing this out, Amma came to show me the horoscope. Much to my disappointment, it just had two matrices with Malayalam letters written in the different squares. "La" "Sha" in left bottom, "Gu" "Ra" in the top right, "Cha" "Bu" in the top center and so on. I don't understand anything. It also has a list of what the different periods of my life are going to be. I have no idea what that means too. "He has told me what all it means, " Amma said about my uncle, while taking the chart back. She must be referring to the three things mentioned in this note a while back.

Another great traditional lunch on banana leaf with two payasams. Nobody eating this food on a daily basis will be able to accomplish anything in the afternoon. 

Ajith's aunt, Dr. A.G. Menon's daughter, received her PhD in history in 1990 for her dissertation on "The Contributions of the Travancore Royal Family to the Arts and Music". I told her I would like to read it. She said it is not published as a book but is available in the university archives. I wish Google digitization comes quickly to Kerala university as well.

Ajith and Tara had some shopping in mind for tomorrow. But then an official duty was remembered. They need to put in the application with the Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation to get the marriage certificate. 

For the marriage certificate they need a venue certificate issued by the marriage auditorium. So when the families parted in the afternoon, I accompanied Achan to Anantapuri Auditorium to get the venue certificate issued.

I hadn't been to the Anantapuri auditorium office yesterday, so I hadn't met the imposing rolly-polly manager lady. She definitely looked like the daughter of the parents whose garlanded photos hung behind her. Even in death, that couple, in their separate framed photos, had inequality. The mother's picture was hung a little higher than the father's. I wondered why nobody spent five minutes adjusting the symmetry. 

Though Achan was asking the questions,the manager lady insisted on answering all of them to me. Such eye-contact when I have no intention of communicating unnerves me. Here I had no choice but to listen to the procedure for obtaining a marriage certificate. 

She explained, "First you submit our form. It needs to be filled in capital letters. Bride and groom and two witnesses who are not blood witnesses should sign it. You should hand us this form with one wedding invitation. Then we will issue a venue certificate. The couple should personally take it to the corporation office. With proofs of identification. They need another two witness."

"Different from the witnesses who sign this form?" Achan had a natural doubt.

"Wedding has many witnesses," she dismissed him and returned to me, her favorite student.

"Earlier the office used to issue only one original certificate. But nowadays, all jobs and visa interviews need you to provide originals. So you can get as many as you want. Just have enough stamp papers when you go there." Pause. "If there is any issue, it'll be good if you know someone in the office. Do you know your local city counsellor?" 

Though this whole primary-school-nostalgia-inducing lecture was delivered to me exclusively,Achan answered the question, "I think we know the counsellor." She briefly looked at him like a teacher looks at an overenthusiastic student who disturbs the class by shouting stuff that he knows without being asked. 

Her eyes returned to me, "You need to contact the counsellor only if there is any issue. Usually there will be no problem. Fill our form carefully and bring it here after 9am with an invitation. We will immediately give you the venue certificate." "Sheri (OK)" said Achan. We got up and left. I felt like a student escaping from headmistresses office.

The shamiana dismantling continued for the whole day. Before leaving for Ajith's house, I watched with much apprehension the risky and acrobatic dismantling process. The workers are from Benares, the ancient holy city. Now they dismantle temporary decorative tents in the richest temple city. After the dismantling, we got busy cleaning the walls that were muddied. 

We did a quick socio-political analysis of the marriage and issued instant character certificates to many of the guests. I was disappointed that I couldn't meet a couple of uncles and aunts I had been looking forward to meeting. I must have been in some other corner of the auditorium when they arrived and got seated. Or may be I didn't recognize them because age has resculpted their faces and figures. It has happened often. 

It rained intermittently today. But not as heavily as it did yesterday. Yesterday was the special day of Atham. The festival of Onam falls on the tenth day after Atham. There is an idiom in Malayalam that goes, "Atham karuthal Onam velukkum" (If Atham is dark, Onam will be fair), meaning if it is dark, cloudy and rainy on Atham day, we'll have great sunny weather for Onam. We'll see.