A midsummer wedding

It was a long awaited wedding . An arranged marriage is unheard off in our family at least for the last 2 generations. So the excitement and curiosity were on a high. Imagine the parents getting an upper hand ! The groom’s cousins asked him ( some loudly ,others secretly) “Are you sure you are doing the right thing ? ”.His enigmatic smile silenced them for the time being. The excitement of matching the horoscopes, the boy and the girl ‘seeing’ each other and both saying ‘yes’, we went through the entire rigmarole.

Two days before the wedding relatives started arriving, aunts,cousins,uncles along with their families. Music, dance, mehendi. Now –a –days there is no such thing as a ‘malayali wedding’. Films and television soaps have opened the world for us and now everything is a mix. Finally the D-day arrived. The groom arrived wearing a richly embroidered kurta and a dhoti. And the bride looking gorgeous in a designer sari, decked in gold from throat to naval ,gold bangles dangling from elbow to wrist. I looked around to see that touch of Kerala somewhere. No, there was none especially in the younger generation. I could see only salwar kammeez or ghagra-choli. No pattupavada or dawani or the long oily plaites. They looked smarter with the hair open and a string of mullappu dangling from one side. No jhumkaas. Only designer jewellery and sequenced dresses. Here is globalization in the true sense. The feast was thankfully pure Kerala, no innovations there ,so far. The ceremony over , the bride went home taking the groom with her.I know my north Indian friends will gasp, but that is pure Kerala for you.

It was time to say good bye .The guests started leaving. hugging and kissing each other, wondering when will they meet again.. I remembered Scott Peck’s words - love is not effortless. On the contrary, love is effortful. When we love, we take an extra step .Like R took a night train reaching in the morning to attend the wedding and left by the evening train. Her busy work schedule will allow only that much. Still she made it, even if it is her husband’s cousin’s son’s marriage. An aunt went through a rigorous ayurvedic massage for her aching knees because ‘God knows when will be the next family reunion like this !’. The groom’s grandmother took every care not to fall ill during the wedding because she felt this is the last wedding she will witness in her life time. She didn’t want to miss it at any cost. The list is endless.As Scott Peck puts it “ love is a verb, not a noun”.For many of us it is, at least in India. Thank God for that !