General Wedding Bile

I have been- let’s say- inspired to resurrect this and this time, I actually feel like it.

It’s been a 12 day long detox from law school and the things that go with it (cough cough) and I felt a little removed from Shruthi, law student. The problem with objectivity is, though, that nothing really seems to have a point. This was the first couple of days. And then I slept.

I was woken up from my stupor on Day 11 to be informed that I had to attend a cousin’s engagement and I grudgingly acquiesced. Generally, I prefer avoiding weddings and family gatherings and consequently had not been to them in a long while. This time, I decided I was being close-minded and I should hang with the folks because bonding is always good, right? Wrong. My attendance at this wedding only reinforced every reason I have had so far to avoid them, so I made a little list to look at every time I lost my mind and decided it was a good idea to attend one.

1. Ever since my sister got married (I was 17 then), I have become the bakra for relatives, in their misplaced affection, to inform me gleefully that I am next. Initially, I was scared because maybe I really was next. Maybe it really was my time to start scouting (however ludicrous the idea may be for a 17 year old- my parents might soon be looking to me to be the golden bride). I realised at this wedding that these were mere empty threats, because I met someone there who has faced them for 10 years and is quite single. Either the elders involved are too lazy (highly unlikely), or have just lost interest, both of which are reassuring.
Also, I now have this image of really bored old aunties hiding in corners and behind pillars to jump out at an approaching youngling to say ‘You’re Next!’ as a form of sport. If this actually is a sport, shame on you old farts- not funny.

2. The food. You’re probably going WTFShe’sCrazy! if you are that brand of NRI that tends to get nostalgic about basically anything you had back home, however unremarkable/horrible it was while you were going through it. Essentially, what we get served at such family gatherings is small quantities of various dishes that we just get at home anyway in satisfying portions. Why must I travel to go through all of the boredom and the nonsense that one does, and not even get compensated by way of an outstanding meal?

3. I don’t know why parents in general think it’s a great idea to take out their children before they are ready not to make nuisances of themselves in public. Personally, children make me awkward. I don’t know how to behave around them because, frankly, I dislike most children but I can’t seem to convey that I don’t want to be around one effectively. It’s easy enough to disengage when you’re in a large public space. At wedding halls and suchlike, however, they’re practically running and crying and peeing and whatever the fuck else it is they do that makes them so annoying actually, literally IN YOUR FACE. And you can’t even complain to anyone who could possibly do something about it because then you’re a horrible person and they’ll make sure your parents hear about it. I don’t know if I’d rather hold a crying peeing and simultaneously somehow running child or listen to my parents give me grief about how so-and-so is making comments about my grouchiness towards their child.

4. The relatives you don’t recognise. Everyone knows these. Do you *want* to recognise them?

5. Sometimes, the relatives you DO recognise.

6. The consumerism!

7. At the end of the day, you know that most of the people that look happy to see you don’t give a rat’s ass, and you don’t care much for them either. It’s a gigantic waste of time. I’d rather be wasting my time in ways that I enjoy.

So.
I think I’m done.