The Glitzy Fripperies of a Fat Indian Wedding

A cavalcade of glimmering sarees draped around expensive body lotions, perfumes, tanishq, myntra.com, fake smiles, and sweat which is a result of active participation in monkey-dancing tournament organized to celebrate the official allowance of consummation between two strangers at the expense of a man who is surprisingly happy to give away the savings of half of his lifetime in a single night on the 22 different kinds of pickels, 6 types of soups, 4 types of paneer, khaman dhokla, butter chicken, pan pizza, dosa, cheela, badal, bijli, panchi, nadiya, pawan ke jhonkey. 

Sweetly talking, sweetly laughing, the social butterflies can be easily seen discussing the keemat of ek chutki sindoor, along with sharing opinions on Mrs. Chopra’s newly bought diamond necklace who, by the way, wore the stole of her designer saree bought from Sarojini market sideways and not over her bosom to show-off the same; deciding on Sharma ji’s son’s future as he had just passed his 12th board examination with flying rainbows straight out of unicorn’s ass; worrying for Mrs. Khanna’s 28-years old daughter who couldn’t attend the wedding as she had to leave for the presentation of her 15th research paper on the queer theory. And a whole bunch of other gossips, thus, forming proud prejudices once again by taking their judgements beyond books and weather.

And lying in the intermolecular spaces of these not-so-unacknowledged lost youths, one can clearly see the flocks of giggling Belindas flauting their bare shoulders, thigh slits, high heels, painted smiles, dark outlines, ear-cuffs, and rolled locks to the ogling eyes of those round shoulders, crop-cut, iPhone flashing, stubble-sporting, paneer tikka nibbling, chicken devouring, tuxedo-carrying brats who have clearly demarcated their territories among themselves as per the unspoken rules of the Bro Code. The territories will now be explored or plundered on the Social Media the following day, with more ogling at the innumerable pout selfies with captions borrowed from the poetry of Pablo Neruda, Christopher Poindexter, Mr. Amari Soul, and the recent R. H. Sin along with emojis of hearts, and hashtags.

And that one guy who has made it the lakshya of his life to get the phone number of bride’s younger sister, who by the way has outshone Parineeti Chopra by losing 10 pounds in a week as she had managed to survive on garden salad and oatmeal.

Lying amidst the aforementioned underrated fripperies, one can clearly not skip Bridegroom’s fufaji’s drunk plead to make Badam Halwa for bride’s mother-in-law. This woman holds the biggest responsibility of accepting money-carrying envelopes. She accepts them with a gracious smile and puts these envelopes (while succumbing her desire every time to peep at the amount) in her fat golden purse, the weight of which she carries on her cut-sleeved shoulders.

One can also not skip the crazy steps of tauji and mausaji on the DJ; the heat between the two teams at the shoe-stealing competition; the little skit performed by bridegroom’s jijaji when his izzat at the hands of bride’s mausaji is feared; and the continuous search to find the water-counter in the labyrinth of desserts and dishes.

Such are few of the various happenings of the fat Indian weddings. One can either laugh or criticize, or simply facepalm at the hoard of shenanigans displayed right from finding a suitable match to the execution of so-called rituals associated with them. 

***