Three weddings

... and a memorial service

In Kerala, a vacation well-spent.

BFIW 2

For the next 3 days, we had our meals sorted out. Special veg buffets on the terrace of the hotel or the feasts accompanying the sangeet on 26th night, the actual wedding on 27th or the reception on 28th night. I didn't miss my daily non-vegetarian protein intake and feasted on the paneer, chaats and Indian sweets. The sangeet had only the groom's party and i assume the bride's side had their own sangeet in another part of the city. The uncles, aunts,nephews and nieces danced along with the groom  while most of us ladies queued up for the mehndi application. I smudged one hand in no time  but despite the glitch, it brightened my palms for a few days.

On the wedding day, a beautician who came to deck up the groom's mother gave me also a touch-up _ it was no small makeover and had me looking like a kathakali artist who many layers of paint and a hairbun that betrayed my actual age. Seema looked stunning in a bright red sari while the other lady relatives turned out fancy in their best saris. By then, the whole extended family paid special attention to making me feel I was part of their family; either my Hindi was improving or their English was. I got on particularly well with Seemas mother, a retired teacher of English, and her quiet father, a college professor who didn't speak much English.

A bus transported us to the wedding venue inGhaziabad , and for a while we stood outside and danced around the groom perched on a white horse. The dancing went on for half an hour, I guess, on both sides of the road and outside the hall entrance before the bride's family  welcomed us all in great fanfare. Little plates of snacks and bright colored drinks began appearing wherever we were, and the initial excitement of a chat counter son dissipated when I realized I had to leave a lil space for the main course.

And then came the bride, in a lovely red lehenga and shielded under what looked like a flower-decked cot, raining flying kisses at the groom waiting on stage. 

The actual wedding pooja happened in the afternoon after we had our fill. The bride had changed into another outfit by then. Everyone crowded around the puja pandas, and i settled for a second row seat and closed my eyes for a while. By the time i woke up, the wedding ceremony was over. I had expected some loud chanting through a mic but it was a hushed affair and the pujari was probably the most soft spoken guy I had seen. Most embarrassingly, the relatives had all seen me dozing and thought I was bored.

The big fat Indian wedding

I flew straight to jaipur on an air arabia flight on Nov 22nd where I was eagerly and affectionately received by my brother's in laws, a retired naval officer living in an officer's campus, one of the few decent localities I found in the Pink City. The city had none of the charm that beckoned us from tourism brochures but was dusty, dirty and disorganized. But my host's bungalow had the most charming and beautiful interiors. I was meeting them for the first time in their home ground. They organized a taxi and one-day tour for me that covered Hawa mahal, Amer Fort, and a drive up Najafgarh fort from where we could observe Jal Mahal basking in the winter sun. The Palace was closed for renovation. Food was great at the restaurant we had lunch and at my host'sfor breakfast and dinner. I left the next day afternoon for Delhi in an Air India vistara flight, despite trepidations about traveling AI after the Ahmed -abad crash. A green yet polluted city welcomed me and took me in an airport taxi to RK PURAM where my friend lived. She welcomed me with aarati and sindoor, and I walked in to a house teeming with her relatives who had come from Indore and Neemach mostly. By night, many of them dispersed to other relatives' homes and it was just me and the groom's parents in the 50 year old government flat. Bro's friend Des and Farah took me out for dinner to an Assamese restaurant that served pork but no beef, so i settled for a chicken meal. 

The next day morning, there was a spillover puja from the previous day's haldi ceremony. The pandit gathered the groom and his parents near him while the rest of us sat behind and most chattered away loudly defying the loud chants from the poojari who would occasionally hand out various things for the groom or his ps to hold or put into the fire. He had a sense of humor and cracked some jokes in Hindi which I didn't understand by everyone else laughed. He kindly let me do an aarati or circling a plate of consecrated stuff around the fire in the end like every other relative.

Soon after the ceremony, we shifted to a hotel in a Punjabi colony. The reception sported paper clippings of Modi wishing Sikhs on their auspicious day.

Delhi days again

One of my favourite memories from my Delhi days in the 1990s was a young couple in their kitchen cubicle - the wife making rotis and curry after office and the husband keeping her company, talking to her in Hindi but keeping an eye out for the three young ladies in the adjoining room. I say room because that rented place in Katwaria Sarai belonging to a Jat gentleman -- who had a family and buffaloes living on the ground floor -- was the most rudimentary of architectural designs.  There were four rooms on the first floor with kitchens and washrooms adjoining them. The working ladies and the couple had their rooms adjoining each other, so they soon got friendly. The husband was a good singer and he would occasionally look at our room and sing "mere samnewali khidki mein ek chand ka tukda rehta hein (There is a piece of moon living in the window in front)".  I assumed he referred to my roommate who was pretty but later the couple told us that it was a tribute to all of us girls.

Whatever, the bond grew and by the time I left in less than an year's time, we had got so close that they looked dejected when they came to bid me farewell at the New Delhi railway station. Though I did not return to Delhi until a decade later, our correspondence continued and we developed a bond that was strengthened by our love for English literature and love and romance in the books we read and in life in general. I discussed my real and imaginary romances  - beginning with a knight in shining armour who rescued me from being pushed into the tracks by a desperate commuter trying to board the moving train at Chengannur where I alighted after a 3-day journey -- and my steady changes in life over inland mail in the initial years and by email and much later WhatsApp. Curiously, in those years I never knew her caste or political affiliations - it never really mattered unlike these days where people's differences are more out in the open.

Some time early this year, Seema told me her only child, who had chosen to become a professional singer, had found the love of his life - a singer herself. Though I initially agreed to go, I later told her I had a few other financial and travel commitments that would make it difficult. But when she sent me the wedding invite in October I decided to go, with ample encouragement from bro. V agreed though he wasnt really aware until much later that I had booked tickets. I decided to spend a day or two sightseeing in Jaipur to make the most of the one-week Delhi trip. I was somewhat apprehensive about sharing space with right-wing strangers in the Delhi hotel they had reserved for us but when she told me I would be sharing a room with her cousin Bobby who I knew from my Delhi stint and Seem herself, I was relieved.  

To be continued

Post-partum caregivers

After two weeks in my hometown during Mira's mid-semester break, I boarded an Emirates flight from Kochi. For a change, I opted for the window seat; aisle seat is my preferred seat as it gives me better freedom of movement and less claustrophobia. 

But I had not bargained for two older ladies as companions - women who were already in winter clothing appropriate for their destinations which were so bulky that it not only inconvenienced the wearer but me the neighbour. Its layered material encroached into my space while her feet in newfound shoes stole part of my leg space. 

Once I had finished admiring the skies and the land below, I turned to study the lady next to me. I surmised she was heading to meet her offspring most probably to help with her pregnancy. My sarcasm towards the kin of the new breed of Kerala immigrants to the West did not prevent me from helping her with her food tray. Her battle with the chettinad chicken biriyani further limited my space - she held akimbo the foil on her left hand as she attacked the chicken. A forlorn fork fell to the ground; I advised her to fetch it later as I didnt want her tripping the whole tray on me.

Once we had finished our meals, I decided to corroborate my findings. And boy! wasnt I right?!!. She was en route to Ireland to take care of her pregnant daughter whose due date was two days later. And her companion's daughter had given birth a day earlier. I only got her native place wrong. She hailed from Nagercoil and her friend from a town near Kochi; the latter seemed a little more flight savvy and English literate (enough to follow the cabin crew's queries). She had travelled all the way to Kochi airport instead of Trv airport to have a flight companion.

"This jacket is too hot," she told me as she removed it after her meal, revealing her dusky figure in  a green sari. I smiled sympathetically. 

But I wasnt prepared for the tale she narrated for the rest of our four-hour journey.  Her daughter was a nurse who migrated from Saudi to Ireland. She had worked as a daily labourer to bring up her three children after her alcoholic and abusive husband passed away. And no, this wasnt her first flight journey, she had been to Qatar to visit another daughter. 

Have you been to Dubai before? No, she said, though my son lives there. He has been incommunicado for the past three years. He lives there with his wife and child but doesnt call me ever. Her eyes moistened as she talked of her son. Her daughter had promised to take care of her. 

She kept talking until the place touched down in Dubai. I wished her all the best and went my way as she waited for the wheelchair to transport her to the connecting flight.. That is a ploy not only to  avoid the long walk inside dxb airport but also to navigate English illiteracy and related bottlenecks. 

Lives of people are more complex than we take them to be.

C to C

Mira had a 10-day mid-semester break in early October that coincided with Pooja holidays. She landed at Chengannur station on September 27, a week after I came. As luck would have it Manju met with a freak scooter accident - she drives up and down every day on a Honda Activa - and a hairline fracture that warranted a week's rest. So Mira could not have the variety food she fancied and along with her fussy granny, she susbsisted on the puttu-banana I cooked up every morning or the quick side dishes our substitute help Ammini rustled up between her hospital visits and SHG and NREGA activities.

One morning, we went to Aranmula to talk to the metal mirror makers, and Mira hopes to find an interesting, not-yet-explored news angle in it for a class assignment. 

p.s. After a two-year wait between application and reception, M gazed at her Aadhar card like she had won the Dubai Duty-free lottery.

Brut and us

Our days partly revolved around our labrador Brutus. I had to set alarm to wake up at 6.30 am to let him out. He would then head to a few plants and water it with his urine before settling down beside me as I read the paper. 

He is a high-energy, cantankerous dog and likes to paw us the moment we pay him some attention. Then he would get even more aggressive with his affection, so the trick is to not pay him any attention and get on with our work. He would then rest his head on the floor and be lost in thought. Most often, he looked like he was waiting for dad, and would choose to rest beside the chair he once sat reading the newspaper.

Mira has a lot of gram-worthy info on his behaviour and diet. Mom of course refuses to heed our gyan and insists that he be fed a bowlful of rice and some beef three time a day.