There are two
reasons this post is being written. One, a friend had taken me to a wedding
reception which was no way related to me and I ate to the fullest possible
limit in the buffet (nature did not call this time though and nobody blocked me
with a cup of coffee). Two, there are certain hilarious incidents that I always
spot in at least the conventional marriages and catering services here.
Though the post
points to characters of distinctive natures, any resemblance to any human being
– either living or dead – is at least
partially coincidental, and is not meant to hurt anybody psychologically,
mentally, cranially, cerebrally and so many other –allys. Also please note that
this post can be related only by people who have witnessed the Tamil Hindu
marriage ceremonies.
The Moi
Mama:
Moi
Mama is usually that person who ages anywhere between 40 and 70, who follows
current affairs of his local constituency to accurate details, who reads The
Hindu (English or Thamizh) daily, and who always keeps fresh 100 and 500 rupees
especially allotted for gifting to the newly-wed couples.
Moi Mama can be
found collecting new bundles of freshly printed cash in exchange for old notes
from banks very often, and the number of times he visits the bank is maximum
during the months of Chithirai, Vaigaasi,
Ani, Thai and Panguni (roughly
April, May, June, January and March), when the marriages overtake the number of
movie releases, and the bank visit count plummets down to trough position in a
sinusoidal curve in the months of Purattaasi
and Margazhi (roughly November
and December), which are mostly regarded inauspicious for weddings.
Some of the
other characteristics of Moi Mama are:
He wears
perfectly starched and ironed formal shirts (mostly half-hand), neatly tucked
in and belted with a branded pant. The pants are usually worn in a manner
similar to the bathing gowns of women, thereby making even a full length pant
look like a three-fourths or a trouser.
They maintain a
stern face even while posing for the photo with the couple, and are found to
exude a courtesy-sake smile while handing over the moi cover to the concerned party (I don’t know how to put it forth;
I meant either the bride or the groom), and saying, “Happy Married Life” in a way similar to the newsreader in Podhigai
channel. If an amplifier is attached to their throat when they utter these
words, there will be no highs and lows and the pulse would go flat because
there is no excitement in the tone.
MMs (let us call
Moi Mamas this way from now on) attend wedding ceremonies like they go to their
office daily. It is more of a compulsion for them to attend these social events
because they are afraid to face the comments of some random person saying, “He did not come to my family function. I
would not let his family function happen.”
With the rise in
inflation on a year-on-year basis, the dosh in the moi covers of these human beings increase in a proportion that even
Ramanujam would find difficult to calculate. To assume roughly, for a period of
every five years, the amount doubles. For example, if MM gives 501 bucks for
every marriage this day, it would mean he was giving either 251 or 201 between
2010 and 2015, and 101 during 2004 and 2009.
The Third Umpire:
As the wedding
proceedings go on in the altar, this person’s gaze would be fixed somewhere
else at an inclined position. A quick glance would misguide one to the
conclusion that he is seeing some woman in the crowd, but a deep stare would
clarify that this man is indeed looking at the visuals of the marriage in the
digital screen.
The intent of
this person would to be focused and concentrated to such an extent that his
vision would pierce through even the most opaque object placed in the field of
vision of his eye towards the screen. In hindsight, a marriage is nothing more
than a live telecast of Kaarthighai
Dheepam (in Thiruvannaamalai) in Doordarshan.
Over a period of
time, his eyes would get fixed to the viewing angle and he would get hypnotized
to such an extent that some random TV shows, if projected in the same screen,
would also be imagined by him to be a part of the ceremony.
In most of the
cases, The Third Umpires either eat exactly at the first pandhi of food, or would choose to go for the last one, because
they are the male counterparts of those serial-watching ladies, who cannot
afford to miss a single visual of their favorite series.
The Expressionist:
For the third kind
of people, the bridal couple may be present or absent, and the food menu is not
part of their bother; they come to marriages for the pleasure of music. During
eleven out of the twelve months in the Thamizh calendar, they have marriages to
attend to listen to music, and during Margazhi,
there are always music festivals being telecast.
These people are
the main culprits behind the chaotic presence of chairs after the marriage,
because they tend to turn towards the direction of the naadhaswara vidhwaan, who will be crouched at another quadrant of
the hall, far away from the main altar. As the vidhwaan holds his breath with great
difficulty to perform an aalaap, the Expressionist would startle the others who
would be sitting and chatting around, with his cries of “Aahaa…”, “Baley Baley”
and “Sabaash”, which are commonly the outcomes of his carnatic inclination.
The Break Dancer:
These
self-proclaimed dance divas are mostly uncles or aunts of the bride or groom,
and they would get excited to such an extent that they start dancing to the
tune of a saxophone or a recorded cine song being played in the sound system.
Usually, their seating positions will be the fifth or sixth rows in the hall,
and the way they run forward to the first row to get everybody’s attention is a
must watch.
After some
adjustments with their garments (like folding the sleeves of a full hand shirt
in case of gents, or tying the dupattah
diagonally like a poonool, in case of
ladies), they would start ‘dancing’. This dance can be anything ranging from
merely asking someone else to dance by blushing after coming forward voluntarily
or clapping the hands incoherently out of sync with the rhythm of the song, to
hopping like a kangaroo here and there or waving the hands from one shoulder to
another. This saga would last for a maximum duration of 15 minutes, and all the
really tiring movements would make the break dancers exhausted that they go for
relaxation, much to the relief of the audience.
The “Rasam please, Mor Please” Maami:
Usually, there
is a procedure for serving food. It starts with the plantain leaf being
positioned correctly with the slightly longer side of the vertical edges facing
the right hand of the eater. Then, water is being sprinkled over it to “clean”
it, followed by the serving of sweets, and then side dishes. The final serving
would be rice along with sambhar, succeeded by rasam and buttermilk.
The “RP, MP”
Maamis would start yelling for buttermilk even before the sweets are being
served (that is, immediately after the plantain leaf is being spread out). Not
stopping with this atrocity, they would instigate the others nearby also with a
snapping rhetoric, “See how careless and
inhospitable these catering workers are these days. They do not even treat the
guests with dignity.” Another mama would now hobnob this to a third person
and this chain would continue till it reaches the sammandhi people who come and try to gauge control of the
situation.
Meanwhile, the
RPMP maamis would be going at full flow in their eating greed, as their
preliminary process of creating some kind of scene has been achieved. The best
part here is that after eating each item at least three times, they would exude
a deep remark of dissatisfaction, stating, “Saapaadu
nannaavey illa. Actually, I am dieting. I was shouting for the person who sat
next to me. He was in need of buttermilk.”
Brofer:
Pretending to do
some really gruesome work is one important feature of a brother or sister, who
would wear valuable costumes and run from one end of the marriage hall to
another without any reason (The title is inspired from Grofers, whose name is again sourced from a combination of Grocery
and Gofer). The main purpose of this running here and there would be to project
an illusion to their friends (from college or school mostly) that they are the
pillars behind the marriage, and in their absence, no proceedings could take
place effectively.
Brofers would
promise their friends that they would be the first people to take photos with
the couple, but that would never happen in reality because the elders would not
pay heed to their implore at the backstage. So the friends would have to wait
for a really long time to hand over the gifts (if any), before hurrying their
way towards the dining area.
One happening
that could easily be associated with a Brofer of recent times is taking selfies
with his/her friends, which would soon be tagged and spread in the social media
with meaningless, irrelevant hashtags.
So these are
only a few characters that form a marriage hall set up according to my perspective.
Comment with intricate details on the other categories of people, in case I missed
out on any of them (I guess there are many more). Seetha Kalyaana Vaibhogamey!
