There was a time when you had to set aside three days to attend a Tamil Brahmin wedding. On day one, you reach the venue in time for lunch and meet lots of new people.
In the evening, there will be the ritual of janavasam for the bridegroom, during which he will be paraded around the town in a jalopy. This would be followed by a sumptuous dinner. The next morning, after a heavy breakfast, the bridegroom would undertake the ritual of Kasi yatra. He would feign a trip to Kasi for sanyas. But, before he could take even 10 steps, the bride’s father would have successfully persuaded him to abandon the trip with the bait of matrimony. Songs by ‘laryngeally challenged’ women, gettu melam, triple-knot and ‘special’ sappaadu follows. Later, in the evening, there would be a reception to facilitate the guys who were at work during the day. More food. We would then sleep in the hall.
On the third day, we would get up, have breakfast and take packets of idlis, tamarind rice and crisps home so that our wives wouldn’t have to cook anything for the day. In contrast, these days marriages are a short affair. The other day, it took me hardly seventeen minutes to breeze through a wedding. The marriage hall in the labyrinthine city of Chennai was spotted with ease since my driver had Google Maps.
I walked straight to the dais where I shook the couples’ hands, spoke the inane stuff and handed them the gifts. Before proceeding, I turned around and posed to please the badgering battery of photo and videographers like a politico facing the press corps after coalition talks in New Delhi. Within seconds, I was shepherded into the dining hall where an array of food, from which I could pick and choose, was spread out. In just seven minutes, I gulped down my dinner and breezed my way out.
My driver was aghast to see me back so fast “Sir, is this not the venue?” he asked. “It is the right place, Mani,” I assured him. “But, you took only fifteen minutes” he said. “Seventeen”, I corrected him. That is sufficient, I felt, in these times when the term ‘joint family’ means just the husband and wife living together.
J S Raghavan
Email: jsraghavan@gmail.com