The Great Indian Wedding!

Today you will be treated to a unique insight into the part of the wedding that I find the most interesting... the wedding guests. Indian weddings tend to be grand affairs, the bigger the better (that goes for everything)! Which means people like me get a lot of opportunity to observe guests with their little eccentricities and tell you stories about them. So here goes…

The first in my list are The Inappropriate Uncles: Alcohol is not served at most Indian weddings and with good reason but some of the older uncles still manage to sneak in drinks which they hide in a room. No one is allowed in that room, as kids we were told that "grown-ups are doing important work there". Yeah, I bet. So that usually ends up with drunk people saying inappropriate things. There was this guy once at a wedding who after a few drinks, came up to another man and described in vivid detail a very hot lady who was standing across the room. After he was done, the man turned to him and said... "I hear you bro, that's my wife".

While the drinkers may get into trouble, this next group never does. They are:

The Eaters: There are a lot of people who come to weddings just to eat. I have friends who attended the wrong wedding because they went straight to the buffet! They sometimes skip lunch to make sure they do not have to turn away the second helping of dessert. That would be a regret you would carry to your grave. Now I know in church marriages, you have the service which everyone attends and then you have the reception. In Indian weddings, you can literally start eating as soon as you enter and getting a seat at the banquet hall is like playing a game of thrones. “All men must die”. And of course, no one watches the actual ceremony... the usual way of doing things is to come late, hand over the gift, click a few selfies and head straight for the food. The only people who are forced to watch are the bride and groom... and the wedding photographer because he is being paid to.

But the group to watch out for are:

The Wedding Mafia: This is the group of ladies that you need to avoid at all costs... If they catch you, they are going to fix your marriage to their neighbor's second sister's nephew's cousin's brother or somebody equally ridiculous. About 50% of arranged marriages in India are fixed at someone else's wedding... A number I just made up to sound impressive. Seriously though, at my elder sister's wedding, I lost count of the number of the number of people who told me "You're next!" *wink wink* I honestly debated whispering the same thing to them at funerals. Anyway, these ladies may look completely harmless in their sarees and their neat hairdos but don't be fooled... They have the power to force even Leonardo DiCaprio to get married... and to a woman of their choice!

This next guest still haunts my dreams:

The Weird Kid: Call me crazy but I have noticed that in every Indian wedding, there will always be this one weird kid in all the wedding photos... right in the middle of the bride and groom. That kid is not impressed by your arrangements, often you don't have a clue who the kid belongs to (which was bound to happen since you don’t know most of the guests) but after that day, you will never forget that kid because he is right there... in the middle of all your photos. And he might as well have held up his middle finger because that my friends, is exactly what he has done to you.

The Over-Enthusiastic Priest: The priest is technically not a guest but he is definitely the person most excited to be at the wedding. During our wedding, the rituals took place at 2 in the morning and our priest was the only person who was remarkably upbeat. He was kind of like a kid who had a sugar rush… only he had a lot to say which we were supposed to listen to.

I don't remember most of what he said but this one gem stands out. It turns out "My husband cannot buy a cow without my permission". Well, permission granted... go buy a cow, eat it for all I care. Wow, I can literally hear religious people fainting all over India. Relax guys, the cow is fine – see that’s why I do not give permission to buy a cow!

So, there you go... Now you are ready to attend your first Indian wedding and in case you're wondering which kind of guest you should be... Be an eater, always be an eater... Oh who am I kidding, most of you are going to be the token “foreigner” who completely stands out and who would be asked to repeat Hindi words while the rest of us go 'Awww'.... Well, you can thank me later for the heads up!

Thanks!

A tale of Courage...

I could never have done many things in my life without being inspired by all of you and by the people around me. Inspiration is what motivates us to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone towards greater things. That is why today, I will tell you the story of a man who has been the biggest inspiration in my life.

This young man was born in a village in Bangladesh.... Well at the time of his birth, it was a part of the Bengal province in India. After the partition of India and the death of Mahatma Gandhi, he was forced to flee his home, leave everything he had behind and come to West Bengal in India to avoid communal riots and police harassment. Living in abject poverty in the city of Calcutta, he still managed to complete his education and started working as a freelance journalist. A lot of struggles followed – both professional and personal but he persevered. By the time I knew him, he was the editor of the largest Bengali newspaper and had established himself as an eminent writer with more than thirty published books. On the personal front, he had a family who loved and admired him. 

I know what you are thinking, it’s a nice story but what has it got to do with us? Well, this young man was my grandfather or “Dadu” as we say in Bengali and he has managed to inspire me in almost every sphere of life. I really tried to condense this down to one learning but then I thought, maybe there is something in each aspect of his life that will inspire some of you.

Courage in adversity: Imagine having to leave behind your home, people you grew up with and everything you have, because you and your family would probably die if you didn’t leave. It takes a lot of courage and perseverance to start from scratch and still achieve your dreams. Dadu started out as a tutor to young kids while he struggled to complete his higher education. For years afterwards he worked as a freelance journalist before finally tasting success. In his personal life too, he faced the immense challenge of losing his only son at a very young age. I never heard him discuss the incident but he honored his son's memory by setting up a charitable foundation to provide monetary support to children who needed it - here he is at a foundation event. Taking life’s challenges and dealing with them is something that he has inspired me to try and do in my life. 

Love conquers all: At a time when love marriages were unheard of (it’s still frowned upon in our country) my grandfather fell in love and eloped with my grandma. They were teenagers, he had no money, she belonged to an affluent family, her family was out to get him, he told us how he had to bring her to an apartment which he shared with his friends... the odds were heavily stacked against them and yet, they spent the rest of their lives together. He wouldn’t have managed to be successful without her support and he made sure everyone knew it. They passed away within five months of each other and I always felt that they never really learned to live without one another. Now that’s the kind of everlasting love that I aspire to have. And here my husband does not even let me change TV channels.

Do what you love: In India, parents see their newborn baby and the first thing they say is “He is going to be an engineer” or “she is going to be a doctor”. And their fate is sealed. But my grandfather believed that you should do what you love and love what you do. He spent his life writing which he loved. He inspired my younger sister to give up science subjects in high school and pursue her love
for literature. Everyone told her not to, they told her “it’s a bad decision and you’re giving up lucrative careers” but she stuck to her guns and said “I want to be a writer like Dadu”. She is
doing very well now and she sucked at Math so it was a great decision all around. More importantly, he inspired her to recognize her strengths and weaknesses and make the right choice.

Read and read more: Every gift that Dadu has given us has been books. Since the time we learned to read, he has never gifted us anything else. He also did not believe in censoring books because he said... “Only when you read everything, that’s when you’ll be able to decide what you like to read”. Once on my thirteenth birthday, he gifted me a couple of Mills and Boon romances. For those of you who don’t know, this is how a typical MB cover looks like. My dad was too embarrassed to even take them away so I went through a phase when I only read these. Thanks Dadu. He was an avid reader himself and slowly built up his personal library. He collected and read a lot of rare, sometimes banned books and reading is something that he has definitely inspired me to do. 

Be curious: My grandfather had a childlike curiosity about everything. Every day he would spend about two hours with his newspapers... reading them cover to cover. In the evening, he would catch hold of us and ask us questions – if we answered correctly he would give us one rupee. I used to be terrified because I could never remember what I read. I used to see my friends go to their grandfathers for love and chocolates and I would say... “What’s his deal? Why is he torturing us?” But I realized later that he was teaching us to be curious about everything. He would watch television with us and tell us tidbits of gossip, we could have political debates one moment and then discuss our crushes the next, he was totally up to date with everything . I try to be curious and eager to learn all the time so if I seem over-enthusiastic at times, you now know whom to blame.

So these were a few of the things that my grandfather has taught me in life. He was not perfect in any way but he took the struggles life handed out and turned them into successes. I miss him, I miss the little things he taught us... making up poems while out on evening walks, laughing at ourselves and always giving our best. He continues to inspire us and I hope he was able to inspire a few of you, he would have loved that!