September 10, 2011
"Enthoru Waste!" (Such a waste!) thundered our neighbor Leny 'chechi'. She must be quite a performer in the court where she works as an advocate, I thought. She was talking about the waste associated with multiple weddings that are organized when people from different religions get married. I witnessed a great conversation between Leny chechi, Achan and Amma yesterday evening in the living room.
Leny chechi: "Plenty of Hindus and Christians are intermarrying. There must be a standard procedure, a new set of ceremonies instead of making the couples and guests go through two entirely different ceremonies. It is so difficult if one of the couple insists that the other convert especially into Christianity. There is so much to go through starting from baptism."
"Where is the love in that then...if someone asks for religious conversion before marriage?!" Amma opinionated suddenly becoming an expert in love matters like those Indian film actors who get PhDs!
"It is to satisfy the egos of the older generation." Achan had the answer. "Some conservatives folks want to feel they have won despite losing out on the arranged marriage deal." He went on to recollect about an otherwise very social Christian friend who became completely withdrawn after his daughter married a Hindu guy.
"People should start getting used to this! New generation is not going to agree for arranged marriage. We should have a single ceremony in which the sacred Hindu thread is worn and immediately a Christian cake is cut! In fact, one of our relatives had such a marriage. It was such a relief. Otherwise we have to dress up twice, go to two different locations on two different days, socialize twice," Leny chechi continued.
I can understand her open-mindedness towards inter-religious and inter-caste relationships. Her younger sister is married to a Hindu: Anil uncle. However, I am astounded by the indignation my parents are expressing about conservative parents who insist on finding partners for their children! From what I know, there was never any other caste alliances entertained in Tara's case.
"One of my friend's son married a Brahmin girl. He was a Nair. All the bending down and touching elderly feet seeking blessing broke the poor guy's back," Achan joked.
Bottom-line is that with the IT (Information Technology) explosion that sent youngsters out of Kerala and gave them good incomes and with the omnipresence of cellphones, love marriages have become much more commonplace. Even in strictly arranged marriages, couples and their parents have started pretending that there was good friendship, perhaps even a hint of romance, between the couple before marriage. But that romantic shade is kept strictly within "boundaries"....just in case the arranged marriage got de-arranged!
Some random marriage broker called on Amma's cellphone with a proposal for me. Amma has developed a new foolproof system to get rid of proposals. If the prospective bride is from Kerala, she declines by saying that I am looking for someone settled in USA. If the proposal is from a lady in the USA, she promptly tells them that my plan is to settle in Kerala. This method has been working wonderfully in the past few days.
Late at night yesterday, a phone call from Valsala aunty came to announce the demise of Divakaran Sir. In his death, at the end of my rather giddy first Onam back home after 15 years, Divakaran Sir has left a final lesson on the gloriously balanced equation of life.
Today morning, at 6:30, Achan and I reached Divakaran Sir's house to pay respects to the body. We spent around half an hour there. The lump in my throat materialized as an obituary note.
While I was typing the obituary, Achan was ironing Amma's sari for the wedding we had to go to this morning.
"Sho! current poyalo!" ( Alas! power supply is gone) He cried!
But then he walked into the hall I was sitting in and saw the fan still fanning. "Ithenthu patti!" (how can this be!) he wondered aloud.
He brought the iron box over to the room and plugged it in.
A short snapping sound was heard.
"Fuse poyi!" (Fuse is gone!) he said with the delight of an experimental naturalist. The fan also lost its vigor and spiral into stillness. The malfunctioning iron had blown the fuses in the upstairs circuit.
My first fuse incident after coming back. I had forgotten how commonplace an event it is here.
We opened the fuse box. 4 out of the 10 fuses were blown. Achan fetched some fuse wire. We tied them up and power supply was restored. The fuse-blower iron was refused further service opportunity. It had come from Kochi with Amma. The Philips iron that arrived from Chennai took over the duties seamlessly!
By 10:30, we were dressed and ready for the wedding we were attending.
RDR is a gigantic auditorium at least twice the size of the Alakapuri auditorium where Tara's wedding had taken place. This was a wedding in the bride's extended family after a long time, so all the relatives in that extended family were invited...all 2000 of them! The groom side had placed 600 invitations. Around 1700 hundred people had come to take part. Three rounds of feasting in the dining area that seats 500 at a time were house full.
The feast was catered by a group called Nikunjam. Their business card left on each banana leaf said that they have branch offices at Kottayam and Marthandam as well. Marthandam is technically in Tamil Nadu though Malayalam is spoken there just as much as Tamil. This Marthandam presence explained a few Kanyakumari district touches in the feast. There was a "moorumulakku" (oil-fried sun-dried chili pickled in buttermilk). And right after the first payasam, some pickled lemon was served. The trick is put a touch of this salty pickled lemon on the tongue in between drinking the payasam. The saltiness neutralises the tongue so that more sweet payasam can be consumed. Totally junkie stuff!The large auditorium had a correspondingly large stage. This meant 30-40 relatives and guides/directors for the ceremony got on the stage. Absolute mess. Everyone gives a different direction to the couple based on some vague tradition they are familiar with. After the exchange of garlands and traditional "giving of the sari", the photo session went on for almost an hour.
When he got a break, the groom came down to chat, "People are asking why I am shivering. It has nothing to do with the ceremony. I have been up since 4:30 am and all I have had is one small banana!" Getting married can be a tough task.
We stayed in the auditorium till 2pm. The decorations featured the 'kasavu' sarees shaped into huge Chinese fans, elephant nettipattoms hanging from the wall and beautiful arrangement of daisies on flower baskets. Some of the guests (women and kids) were arbitrarily stealing these daisies. By the time we left, most of the baskets had only the leafy greenery. Indian woman's itch to pluck flowers goes back to the time of epic Mahabharatha in which Draupadi sends of one of her husbands, Bhima, to bring her Kalyanasowgandhikam flower.
Another feast meant another afternoon nap. Amma had to go to the "previous day" ceremony of her Ayurvedic doctor's son's wedding. This doc has been mentioned in an earlier note. He also happens to be Leny chechi's doc. So they went together while I was napping. The ongoing Malayalam month of Chingam is considered very auspicious so it is full of weddings. The next month, Kanni, is much less glamorous. Apparently people get feast-related withdrawal symptoms then. I'll report if I experience cravings.
Heavy rain in the evening.
A day that began with sombre reminder of unavoidable mortality promptly followed by a couple committing to continue life.
Life, death and night rain!
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