Of daughters and marriage

Its been exactly a month since Ammu, my daughter, got married - time has been flying by at the rate of knots and I'm still coming to terms with Ammu being married and actually managing home and hearth in Mumbai. Last January she was engaged and at the time the September wedding seemed so far away. Before I knew it it was upon me and now its over, done and dusted! Time seems to come at me like the rushing wind comes at you when you accelerate on a powerful bike - it hits you in the face and before you know it, its past you!

Before Ammu's big day I would imagine how I would feel as I gave her hand away, I would imagine what I would say to Arun as I couched her hand in his and held their two hands together. I asked myself if it was going to be an emotionally draining moment when she got into that car and went away to Arun's ancestral home. To all those questions I seemed to answer myself with equanimity and tell myself 'its really no big deal', 'its just going to be another day in her life, why should these thoughts bother me'! Around me cousins asked me how I would feel when Ammu is married off and I would tell them the very same thing I felt within me. But I would also wonder why so many people want to know how I, as Ammu's father, would feel when she left home.

Then the day dawned, there were all these friends of Ammu crawling all over the house getting themselves ready for the occasion. Ammu herself was packed off with her soulmate Anam to the beauty parlour to get ready for her big occasion. She looked happy and quite confused at all the paraphernalia she needed to carry to the parlour - the jewelry, the hair clips and other accoutrement, her wedding saree, blouse, bangles, flowers for her hair and so many little things! Anam managed all that like she had done this kind of organising all her life! She infact is a young Muslim girl from Lucknow so there was no way she could have known about all the stuff that a Nair bride would require but she played her role with panache. Three hours and some minutes later the car entered the compound of Sudha's mother's home, people all around were in various states of getting ready, they all stopped in their tracks as the car made its way in. The front passenger door opened and Ammu emerged from the car looking oh so beautiful, all dressed in bridal finery and I took one look at her and my mouth went dry and I suddenly felt a tug on that heartstring, the eyes welled up but I could not be seen shedding a tear, so I held back. I was kind of numbed by the vision of my little girl emerging from a pupae ready to fly away as a beautiful butterfly. It reminded me of a tatoo she surreptitiously got done some years ago on her right upper back - it featured this young girl fitted with butterfly wings and taking off. In a jiffy it was time for me to drive Ammu off to the mandapam in our car, soon Arun was ushered on stage by Ashwin and a bevy of young things bearing the traditional 'thaalam'. Ammu was then also ushered in onto the stage and the next thing I know I was giving her hand away to Arun. My mouth was still bone dry, I had been chewing on gum hoping to get the salivary glands to secrete but they too were numbed by the occasion it would seem and all that I could utter to the newly weds at the time was 'all the best to you both'!

Farewell Molu!

On choice

Hark back to those days, not so long ago, when we had just the choice of the Ambassador car or the Premier Padmini if you were shopping for a car. Today, the Indian consumer is spoilt for choice - there are more car brands and models than one can count and on TV there are a thousand channels to choose from! Is this supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? Most of us have grown up hoping for more to choose from because we were always up against a limited range to choose from. When we traveled overseas we always were a bit flummoxed at the 200 varieties of bread in the London supermarket. I know I always wondered how people made up their minds when such a huge choice existed! As a kid in London I would simply ignore the whole range of breads and go simply for the Mother's Pride loaf of bread because I thought it would boggle the mind if I had to actually evaluate all those options before deciding on the bread of my choice!

So we come to the same question - is large choice a good thing or a bad thing? It seems one intrepid sardarni from the US decided to check this out - Sheena Sethi Iyengar a clinically unsighted psychology Professor set up these two tables at the entrance to a major supermarket and on one table she had 6 different jams to choose from and on the other she had 30 different jams to choose from. Of the 600 people who were exposed to the two tables she discovered that more people purchased from the table with fewer choices but more people visited the table with more choices!! Taking this one step further she evaluated people's level of satisfaction when exposed to choice and discovered that people exposed to more choice tended to be less satisfied with their purchase than the ones' who were exposed to less choice! So can we conclude that 'more choice is not necessarily' such a good idea? Well, this amazing lady has written a book on this subject and I'm about to launch into reading it - hopefully we'll find out about if more choice is good or bad when I'm through with the book. Until then I'd like some of you who read this blog to tell me what you think about the issue of choice!

I'm off to catch a train for Tuticorin in a moment - am headed off to Pearl city to attend my school friend Thamilarasu's daughter's wedding. There is going to be a large number of old buddies from school and I'm getting that excited feeling about meeting them.

Hectic times

Its been a while again since I put something down in my blog - guess the approaching wedding of my daughter isn't really helping my writing! The blogger's block is palpable and in my face most of the time because I seem to want to do so many things at the same time and in the confusion that results, writing my blog takes a back seat.

The last two weeks have been hectic to say the least - what with all the travels for one wedding or the other and the kids coming home - its lovely to have both the brats home but I'm not so sure the wife thinks that way about having them both home at the same time! They are two very different kids and pandering to their individual likes and dislikes is a tall order! When they come home they actually expect the mother to be doing exactly what they like!! My mother-in-law is here too - to spend a few weeks with her grand-daughter before she takes on a husband in September! The plan is for Ammu to learn some of her grand-mother's cooking while the old lady is home but I am not sure much of that learning is actually happening!

One of the tasks I am vested with when the mother-in-law comes to Chennai is to take her every morning to the temple in Shastrinagar, Adyar at about 0700hrs - a task I do not fancy because it means I have to hang around outside the temple till she has finished appeasing her God! It always amazes me that the old lady believes that this God of hers actually listens to her and will do his damndest to make sure all her petitions are addressed appropriately! This year however, I notice that the mother-in-law made no such efforts to head to the temple every morning - I dared not ask her why lest I remind her of her usual chores! It turns out that because of a death in her family back in Kerala there is a period of time that must lapse (its called Pela in Malayalam) before she can visit her God again! So this year I am spared the chore of getting my dear Mother-in-law to the abode of her God every morning! Shall we say 'thank God for small mercies'?? Or would that be a mean thing to say given that somebody had to die to spare me the chore? Whichever way I see it I am grateful for the small mercy!

Then there have been all those Georgian visitors to Chennai from overseas - first it was Dr Sam Thomas from Cleveland, Ohio and Glenn Sargon from Perth, Australia. These guys provided us with the excuse to get together again in Chennai after a fairly long hiatus! Boy, was it good to get together again with the old school buddies! Sheila and Doc Jimmy provided the venue for one of the get togethers and Anita and Arun Fredrick opened their home to us all for the second of the get togethers while the third was held on the terrace of the Chater home. The gatherings were well attended and a great time was had by all. The kids joined in and seemed to have themselves a good time too. Below are some pics taken at the get togethers.

Bellboys all - PC, Glenn, Sattar and myself
Ashwin answering a zillion questions on life in an Indian Navy submarine!

Are we as a nation awake or what?

The last few days have seen a torrent of news items on honour killings across the country and I'm trying to make sense of this nonsense called honour killing. It seems that panchayats (local governments in villages across India) are allowed to rule on the issue and can actually penalise persons who choose to marry out of their community. As if that is not enough, there is this notion of 'gotra' and if somebody chooses to marry a person from the same gotra the panchayats can nullify the marriage and punish those who dared to enter into holy matrimony thus! So what is this 'gotra' - I asked around and believe it or not very few even have a foggy idea of what it is! One of the most cited explanations is that every one of us is descended from one or the other Rishi (Hindu hermit) and each of these descendents along the paternal line will be said to have been born under that gotra - for example, all the descendents of Rishi Bharadvaja belong to Bharadvaja gotra. Now, it is forbidden to marry a person from the same gotra - I really wonder who is keeping track of the gotras that people belong to and does any one really care? Well, it seems there are plenty who are keeping track and even more folks who care and will even kill those who dare!!

I haven't the faintest idea which gotra I belong to but then again I am not brahmin and technically speaking the gotra system applies to the brahmins is what I must deduce because you trace yourself to the rishis who were all brahmins.

With so many brothers killing sisters and their husbands for marrying within the same gotra or outside the community the politicians have gotten into the act and some have said panchayats must be given the legal authority to punish people who flout the gotra or community rules! I think it stinks just as badly as the insistence of some politicians to do the Census of India on a caste basis! For heaven's sake don't these jokers realise we are living in the 21st century and not in vedic times? Does education and basic intelligence not impact upon such issues? Seems like education in India is for the classrooms and must be left back there when we exit the classroom and enter the big bad world! That perhaps explains why we in this country do not think anything about spitting in the corners inside buildings or in places where people tread, that perhaps explains why people across the country think nothing of taking a crap in full public view on the roadside!

Seems like none of the politicians or advocates of honour killing have read that soul stirring piece by the poet laureate of India - Tagore:

.....Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

It is clear we, as a nation, have not yet woken up!!

What is it that goes into a marriage invitation?

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!

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.

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.