The time has come for us to go about getting that invitation ready for Ammu's wedding. So last weekend the task was to be undertaken by Sudha, Ammu and myself. I commented to Ammu that I do not even recall having seen what the invitation looked like for my own marriage and here we have her wanting to have a say in everything from the paper used, the color combination and even the wording!
The one thing we three were agreed upon was that it would be a simple, not-too-wordy invitation card. After a visit to a couple of card shops we zeroed in on the paper and general size and layout of the card and handed them the agreed upon wording which was to make references to the parents and grand parents of the bride and just the parents of the groom. These details were conveyed via telephone to the two grand mothers (my mother and Sudha's mother) before we set out for the card shop. By the time we got back home from the card shop my Mom was calling desperately to say that we had to have the addresses of the grand parents printed on the card or people may not be able to tell who the bride is! Sudha and Ammu would have none of this because they argued that the invitation would go mostly by hand or if it did go by post it would be followed by a telephone call so people would easily be able to tell who is getting married.
On Monday the proof arrived by email and it soon became clear to me that just mentioning that the groom was 'son of Nirmala and Lt. Gen G M Nair SM, VSM' would not do - people would want to know where they are from, which means that the details of their ancestral home will need to be mentioned! As I was thinking of this my mother calls to mouth exactly what was going through my mind - call it deja vu or whatever you may! She had a hearty laugh as she spoke of my cousin saying that if we did not give details of the bridegroom's parents 'people may think that Arun's folks have no address'!!
All this basically harks back to the ancient traditions of Kerala where a person is not just himself or herself, he/she is essentially also made up by his ancestry and therefore his/her ancestral home must be part of him/her. Thus, people are always referred to as 'Gopi son of Devaki of Thottakat House in Muttambalam' that description circumscribes the person in his entireity because it tells you who he is, who he is born of and the reference to the ancestral home provides a historical perspectives of the doings of that ancient ancestral home and its scions and therefore a character sketch of the kind of person he could be.
When Sudha and Ammu choose not to have those details appended to the grand-parents of the bride and the parents of the groom they will be breaking a mould that is many hundred years old. Iconoclasts these two young ladies are turning out to be!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
What does one make of this?
This morning Sudha and I tried to work out how one car could be available to both of us when we needed it but try as we might it wasn't working out for us. So it was decided that I would take one of those infamous three wheeler taxis of Chennai, the auto-rickshaw to work. We actually have one of those auto-rickshaw stands in front of our house so it should have been easy for me to get one of those three wheelers but it turned out that the direction I was headed was not the direction that the two auto drivers in front of the house were prepared to go! So I trudged it to the next street where there is another one of those auto-stands and here these guys were asking for a hundred and eighty bucks for a trip that should not have cost anything more than a hundred bucks! So off I went in the direction of the bus stand thinking I'll do the trip to work by bus. As I walk along the road an auto slows down and when I tell him where I wanted to go he demanded two hundred bucks for the trip! The next auto guy who slows down surprisingly wanted only one hundred bucks so I hop in and tell him I'll gladly give him a hundred and twenty Rupees just for his charging me the correct price! He is surprised and looks at me through his rear view mirror just to make sure I was not mocking him so I told him I was just glad he did not try to rip me off and he said 'there is little place left in the world for honesty in this day and age Sir'.
The auto trundles along and as we reach Kalakshetra colony the auto-driver's mobile phone rings so he pulls over to the side and begins to talk to the caller inquiring how his wife was. He was agitated by the caller telling him his wife was having a breach baby and would need a Caesarian section and that the hospital needed him to put up another Rupees Seven Thousand before they could consider sending his wife in to the operation theater. He pleaded with the caller saying he had Rs Two thousand after having plied his auto all night just to raise some money for the hospital costs. He urged them to go ahead with the operation and promised to bring the money when he got to the hospital. He was weeping openly as he said that and he hung up on the caller. He got back into the auto and turned to me and said 'mine was a love marriage Sir, never ever have a love marriage - you will have no family support if you go against the will of your families'. He went on to say that he begged the auto owner for some money but he refused him money and instead preferred to put money into a temple hundi! He was crest fallen that friends too would not come forth at a time of need and said he was feeling suicidal. He wanted me to get off his auto so he could go and return the auto to the owner and head to the hospital with the two thousand rupees he had in hand. He even said I did not have to pay for the trip thus far.
I asked the man to calm down and said he should drive on to my office and I would give him the money he needed for the child birth. The man could not believe his ears - he turned around and touched my feet and said 'God must have sent you to get in my auto'. I was quite embarrassed by his utterances and asked him to concentrate on his driving but he went on talking, mostly to himself, of how his God took care of him. I did not have the heart to tell the man I am an atheist and did not believe in his God! I stopped at an ATM and drew some money for the man and handed it over to him at the end of the journey. I chose not to watch his facial expression when the money came into his hands - I just turned away and walked towards my office. I did not dare turn around and see what was happening with the man.
At 1330 today I got a call on my mobile from the auto driver to tell me his wife had been delivered of a baby girl and that the mother and baby were well. I wish the auto-man and his little family all the very best. I really am not sure what to make of this episode, I just hope that this whole episode was not an elaborate con and that the money was well spent.
The auto trundles along and as we reach Kalakshetra colony the auto-driver's mobile phone rings so he pulls over to the side and begins to talk to the caller inquiring how his wife was. He was agitated by the caller telling him his wife was having a breach baby and would need a Caesarian section and that the hospital needed him to put up another Rupees Seven Thousand before they could consider sending his wife in to the operation theater. He pleaded with the caller saying he had Rs Two thousand after having plied his auto all night just to raise some money for the hospital costs. He urged them to go ahead with the operation and promised to bring the money when he got to the hospital. He was weeping openly as he said that and he hung up on the caller. He got back into the auto and turned to me and said 'mine was a love marriage Sir, never ever have a love marriage - you will have no family support if you go against the will of your families'. He went on to say that he begged the auto owner for some money but he refused him money and instead preferred to put money into a temple hundi! He was crest fallen that friends too would not come forth at a time of need and said he was feeling suicidal. He wanted me to get off his auto so he could go and return the auto to the owner and head to the hospital with the two thousand rupees he had in hand. He even said I did not have to pay for the trip thus far.
I asked the man to calm down and said he should drive on to my office and I would give him the money he needed for the child birth. The man could not believe his ears - he turned around and touched my feet and said 'God must have sent you to get in my auto'. I was quite embarrassed by his utterances and asked him to concentrate on his driving but he went on talking, mostly to himself, of how his God took care of him. I did not have the heart to tell the man I am an atheist and did not believe in his God! I stopped at an ATM and drew some money for the man and handed it over to him at the end of the journey. I chose not to watch his facial expression when the money came into his hands - I just turned away and walked towards my office. I did not dare turn around and see what was happening with the man.
At 1330 today I got a call on my mobile from the auto driver to tell me his wife had been delivered of a baby girl and that the mother and baby were well. I wish the auto-man and his little family all the very best. I really am not sure what to make of this episode, I just hope that this whole episode was not an elaborate con and that the money was well spent.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
I'm impressed
Indeed, I'm impressed with the way my niece's wedding went off in the deep south of Kerala, India. Last week Sudha, Ammu and I traveled to Trivandrum to attend Veena's wedding - Sudha and Ammu headed there a couple of days before I did so as to be able to help in the final stretch of the preparations for Veena's wedding.
Veena's mother Usha (my first cousin) had a houseful of folks from her husband's side as well as from her own Mom's side - every one of those folks had traveled from afar to be there to put their shoulder to the wheel. The youngster males were ever ready to drive to the airport or railway station to pick up arriving guests, while others set about cleaning the house, the women helped put together the food for all those in the house. It was work, work, work for everybody and come mid-night people slept wherever there was some space to rest their tired bodies and were up early the next day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to do whatever it took to make the wedding a fun event for all to enjoy. The day before the big day was special because more people had come in from all over the world and the house was choc-a-bloc! There was this American guy Enrique Batayas, all of 27, who was there with his German girl friend Manon who he met in Australia. The two of them got swept into the marriage preparations and were simply amazed at how the family all pull together - it was the Yankee who commented how awesome it was to see four generations of people all get together for the wedding! Back in the US he says its just 'me, my Mom and maybe my dog'!!
The wedding itself happens so fast that there is not really too much to see and because it is not over seen by a priest there is always plenty of confusion on the stage with multiple elders reeling out contradictory instructions!! Enrique put it beautifully when asked what he thought of the wedding per se - he said 'it was confusion confounded once the bride and groom got on the stage and then the paparazzi moved in and there was little to see'!! How true - most of us actually only got to see the butts of photographers and videographers!!
In the end it was a lovely simple wedding like most Nair weddings and Brijesh and Veena looked the perfect pair. I wish them all the very best in life.
Veena's mother Usha (my first cousin) had a houseful of folks from her husband's side as well as from her own Mom's side - every one of those folks had traveled from afar to be there to put their shoulder to the wheel. The youngster males were ever ready to drive to the airport or railway station to pick up arriving guests, while others set about cleaning the house, the women helped put together the food for all those in the house. It was work, work, work for everybody and come mid-night people slept wherever there was some space to rest their tired bodies and were up early the next day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to do whatever it took to make the wedding a fun event for all to enjoy. The day before the big day was special because more people had come in from all over the world and the house was choc-a-bloc! There was this American guy Enrique Batayas, all of 27, who was there with his German girl friend Manon who he met in Australia. The two of them got swept into the marriage preparations and were simply amazed at how the family all pull together - it was the Yankee who commented how awesome it was to see four generations of people all get together for the wedding! Back in the US he says its just 'me, my Mom and maybe my dog'!!
The wedding itself happens so fast that there is not really too much to see and because it is not over seen by a priest there is always plenty of confusion on the stage with multiple elders reeling out contradictory instructions!! Enrique put it beautifully when asked what he thought of the wedding per se - he said 'it was confusion confounded once the bride and groom got on the stage and then the paparazzi moved in and there was little to see'!! How true - most of us actually only got to see the butts of photographers and videographers!!
In the end it was a lovely simple wedding like most Nair weddings and Brijesh and Veena looked the perfect pair. I wish them all the very best in life.
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