Indian weddings and associated ceremonies are terrifying things – they are a cause of anxiety for the bride and groom, they terrorise the parents and they often create frightening complications in the lives of sundry relatives who have only a tenuous link with the dramatis personae. Weddings can be daunting for the guests too, even those who are merely acquaintances at the workplace or those that might be called ‘revenge invitees’. At many a reception, it is difficult to distinguish between relatives of the bride, the relatives of the groom, the guests of the aforementioned parties and habitual or unwitting gate crashers. The parents, who pay for the hoopla, remain under murderous pressure to conform and compete. Thus if the Khannas had a five-cuisine spread, the Nayyars must arrange live streaming of the proceedings shot by drones and the Trivedis must have a destination wedding. Hardly anyone enjoys themselves and even repeated playback of the reception video fails to identify all the Aunty Jis and Uncle Jis who attended the do.
As if to prove these postulates, my Damyanti aunty telephoned from Nagpur last Saturday. “Arre beta! Will you go to Chhotu’s wedding reception at the Taj tomorrow?”
“Who is Chhotu?” I enquired with some justification because it was the first time that I had heard this name.
“Haven’t you been invited? How many times have I told you to be more sociable? Chhotu is your cousin, don’t you know? He is your father’s cousin’s son from his second marriage.” I was confused. I am no more antisocial than the next person. I had never heard of Chhotu. Whose second marriage? My dad’s? Or his cousin’s? I had never heard of anyone in my family having the courage to marry twice. And I was stupid enough to so declare to Damyanti aunty. This led to a long and trying telephone conversation, at the end of which Damyanti aunty ordered me to attend the reception on Sunday, whether I wanted to or not.
“Put twenty-one hundred rupees and one, in a shagun lifafa. Use one of those fancy envelopes, okay? You are bound to know lots of relatives there. I will text the venue and time to you. Okay?”
So okay it was and my wife and I trundled off to the Taj Mahal hotel on Sunday evening. The entrance to the reception lawns was beautifully decorated with a board announcing ‘Pritam weds Komal’.
“Ah, Pritam must be Chhotu’s name,” I said to the love of my life. “Are you sure it isn’t Komal?” she countered, deadpan.
Assuming an innocent air, we sauntered into the vast lawns. Guests milled around and a longish queue snaked its way to a dais on which the bride and groom were seated; one of whom – either Pritam or Komal aka Chhotu – was said to be my cousin. Or second cousin.
“Do you recognise anyone?” I asked the little woman.
“Why would I? They all are your relatives!”
“Supposed to be,” I corrected her.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Let us dump the ‘lifafa’ and get the hell out of here,” I said.
“Now that we are here, let us at least have dinner,” said my wife, ever the practical one. “I am not in the mood to cook when we return home. And it seems silly to go out for dinner when we are already out.”
“Let us first check if we know anyone,” I said. But there was no one who was even vaguely familiar. On a sudden inspiration, I decided to get technology to help me. I made a video call to Damyanti aunty. “Do you recognise anyone,” I asked, pointing the camera at a group of guests.
“I am not certain, but those three there, they look like Bunty and Saurabh and Goldie”.
“Is that from right to left or left to right?” I asked. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “How can the extreme right be Bunty? She is clearly a girl.”
“So what’s wrong with that? Bunty can be a boy too, no? It is such an androgynous name.”
“Shut up! Names can’t be androgynous. People are,” Interjected the little woman.
“Oh for the love of God, will you two stop quibbling about semantics?”
One of the guests gave me a weird look, as if pointing a camera at someone at a wedding was some prohibited activity. I quickly put away the phone in my pocket.
Meanwhile, the queue at the dais had dwindled, so we went up the few steps to the brand-new couple. There was a bevy of girls crowding around the seated pair, but the parents of Pritam / Komal were not in evidence. I did not recognise the groom. He did not recognise me. None of the girls looked like a cousin to me. Not even like a second cousin. At the same time, I confess I do not know what a cousin is supposed to look like.
I handed the fancy envelope with money to the bridegroom and murmured that the gift was from Damyanti aunty, who lives in Nagpur. “Who is Damyanti aunty from Nagpur?” he asked.
“Isn’t she your aunt?” I countered.
“My Chachi lives in Nagpur. I never knew her name was Damyanti.”
“Well it is and we are cousins. Or, umm, maybe second cousins.”
The groom looked at my grey hair and was about to protest. Then he thought better of it and turned to the sweet young thing standing behind him and said, “Nagpur Wali Damyanti Chachi has sent Shagun.”
“Who is Damyanti Chachi?” demanded the SYT. But before she could pursue this line of questioning further, the photographer intervened. He asked us to stand closer together, asked us to smile, said ‘One more please’ and then with a wave of his hand suggested that we should move along so that others standing in a queue behind us could dump their gifts/lifafas/flowers and proceed to the dining area.
So we hied thither. The little woman proceeded to the buffet and I to the bar. The two of us could well have been visiting Earth from another dimension, because no one spoke to us, no one greeted us and if perchance someone saw us, they looked through us. If I was related to any person here, they were as ignorant about the fact as I was. Only the bartender smiled at me.
An hour later, with three large ones under the belt, I let the missus drive us back home. ‘Mission Envelope’ accomplished, I decided to report compliance to Damyanti aunty like a good soldier. I again video called her and informed her it was a grand function even though we did not recognise anyone, I had done her bidding. I added that this was the last time that I was going out all the way to some place like the Taj Palace hotel for her or for anyone else.
“What did you say? Taj Palace? I had asked you to go to the Taj Man Singh, Stupid! The reception wasn’t at the Taj Palace!”
“Anyway, that’s the place we went to. Let those blighters spot us in the wedding photographs and try to figure out who we are!” I giggled.
“You are drunk, you incompetent fool! I should have known that you can’t be trusted to do even something as simple as handing over a ‘Shagun’. You and your wife!’”
Suddenly piqued, the better half said, “Now aunty, don’t drag me into this. But even then, for your information, the matar paneer was delicious.”
“The whiskey wasn’t bad either!” I added.
With a snort, Damyanti aunty disconnected the call.