Date: 19th May
Time: 1.53am
I have just come back from a typically Sindhi wedding. I mentioned in a previous post of mine about a Mehendi- well this was the subsequent wedding.
It was held at the Holiday Inn and my sister and I walk in pretty late while the wedding ceremony is going on. The wedding ceremony is supposed to be conducted in a place that signifies something about the vows these two people are making for the rest of their lives, i.e. a temple etc but instead it is held in one of the most profane environments of all, a hotel ballroom. At least it wasn’t in a club or something. The ceremony was being conducted at the extreme right of the ballroom with its makeshift stage and inevitable rudimentary fireplace and a priest who sweats profusely but yet is able to monotone his praises to the Wedding Gods while smiling his grime sheathed teeth to the cameras clicking away photographs which will fill at least forty useless albums.
I was just thinking, if Wedding Gods do exist, then their mortal, or rather; immortal enemies would be the Divorce Devils. Their respective counterparts would probably be the Birth Goddesses and the Abortion Demons. And I suppose, the Miscarriage deity would probably side with the God or the Devil depending on the woman’s personality. If she was a good soul and she had a miscarriage, then God would have caused it to prevent future pain, like if the child turned out to be retarded or just dumbfuck jerk. If she was a plain bitch, the demon would have caused the miscarriage in the 8th month, to punish both the bitch and the child (after all it is a Demon). Hmmm…Interesting.
The ballroom was gorgeously decorated. While the ceremony was going on, we all had to enter the hall and take our seats graciously and with hushed respect for the he-who-sweats-profusely-attention-whore and of course the couple. At each table, there’s a sleek candle burning which throws off a very subdued glare that flickers sexily on the cutlery and on everybody’s glasses. We all also get a glass of juice served in a champagne glass as soon as we are seated. It is quite disappointingly only juice, but rightfully so considering the hall is filled with old ladies who might have all kinds of coronaries and aneurysms if they took a sip of the Devil’s liquid. Of course some of these cunning ladies might down quite a few alcoholic drinks before crying foul, you know, just for the sake of proprietary and for the plain fun of good ol’bitching.
Additionally, the ballroom had these beautiful chandeliers which are a trademark of the Holiday Inn. The twinkling, ostentatious chandeliers lent a lot of glamour to the whole thing. It was really nice sitting there, me in a pin-striped suit with a white shirt (no tie), my sister in a 25 year old vintage black, sequiny saree, at a table full of strangers but laden with a beautifully intricate lace table cloth with a gold border. You can’t help but notice these things sometimes.
Dinner was predictably Indian fare. After the obligatory Congratulations shout out by DJ Curzon, we took to the buffet table like, well, Sindhis. I felt like slapping an old man as he pretended to be lost and wedged in front of me in the line. I couldn’t of course you know, because too many people were watching. The food was, in this case, unpredictably quite good. At my cousin’s wedding two years back, at the Taj Samudra, a whole contingent of guests who travelled all the way from the Caribbean, fell sick after eating the buffet at the Mehendi. So embarrassing for us!! This girl’s tongue actually turned black after the incident. Luckily it passed within a day and she was all ready to soak up the free alcohol at the wedding a few days later.
Getting back to this wedding and of course the alcohol, the bar was unfortunately situated very near to a close group of relatives who were paying a lot of attention on my movements, like they knew I was going for the alcohol. In an imagined world I see all my uncles clapping high-five when they saw their son/nephews going towards the bar. They would say stuff like, ‘Oh thank god, I thought he was going to be, you know, chee, I don’t know how to say this, a non-drinking sissy’. That day will never come because Sindhi husbands are very much controlled by their ball-squeezing tough ass bitches that’ve been brought up on entire lectures on the dangers of drink. Sensible women. NOT.
But resourceful as I am I got a friend to sneak me a Bacardi Coke. It was sooo fucking strong. It was absolute bliss lah. Quickly gulped it down but I saw a few of my uncles give me disapproving looks. Tsk tsk. I still think they probably express disapproval because they’re so jealous since we have become so cocky and so secretly-public with our furtive drinking habits whereas they had to plan in advance some big day in which they could drink and be off their faces. Damn, I wasn’t even driving, I should have drunk more. In fact, at that fateful Mehendi mentioned above, I WAS driving but I still swigged away around eight Bacardi Cokes. It was only later that I was informed that I was supposed to take my mum, my sister, my aunt and my grandmother home. I handled it quite well but I’d rather not take the risk again. There is a certain something about having 70-80 bottles of wine, champagne, Bacardi, vodka, gin and whisky at your beck and call that makes you take risks!!
Anyway, let me comment on the people. As we all have heard a million times, Sindhi’s are very, very conscious about how they look in public. Therefore it was not surprising to see the glitterati out in full force. There were diamonds, amethysts, opals, emeralds and sapphires all glowing fiercely on the mostly wrinkled necks of middle to old aged women. The sarees were sometimes flawless, sometimes gaudy, sometimes elegant, sometimes looking like shit. The men were mostly dressed in expensive looking suits and it was sooo refreshing to see that a lot of my peers were being original and wearing uniquely coloured ties with nicely coloured shirts. My favourite combination was where the guy was wearing an orange shirt with a suede black tie. Very sleek.
The best part of all this is that even though the riches were quite obviously flowing effortlessly around the ballroom, it was NOT a high-profile wedding. The Joneses are always on the minds of wedding planners.
Seriously though, the wedding was faintly exciting as I got to see some people who I haven’t met in AGES. It was also quite scary to see the pretentiousness of it all but fuck it, it’s just up to us to have fun. I did have fun! I checked out people indiscriminately and imagined myself doing un-godly things on the stage when everyone had left. I also socialized and it was refreshing to have one or two intellectual conversations in the midst of the equally refreshing eight or nine bimbotic ones.
And then we left. We took our parting gifts of wedding cake and liquor chocolates and drove home. Absolutely sober. Damn.
Time: 1.53am
I have just come back from a typically Sindhi wedding. I mentioned in a previous post of mine about a Mehendi- well this was the subsequent wedding.
It was held at the Holiday Inn and my sister and I walk in pretty late while the wedding ceremony is going on. The wedding ceremony is supposed to be conducted in a place that signifies something about the vows these two people are making for the rest of their lives, i.e. a temple etc but instead it is held in one of the most profane environments of all, a hotel ballroom. At least it wasn’t in a club or something. The ceremony was being conducted at the extreme right of the ballroom with its makeshift stage and inevitable rudimentary fireplace and a priest who sweats profusely but yet is able to monotone his praises to the Wedding Gods while smiling his grime sheathed teeth to the cameras clicking away photographs which will fill at least forty useless albums.
I was just thinking, if Wedding Gods do exist, then their mortal, or rather; immortal enemies would be the Divorce Devils. Their respective counterparts would probably be the Birth Goddesses and the Abortion Demons. And I suppose, the Miscarriage deity would probably side with the God or the Devil depending on the woman’s personality. If she was a good soul and she had a miscarriage, then God would have caused it to prevent future pain, like if the child turned out to be retarded or just dumbfuck jerk. If she was a plain bitch, the demon would have caused the miscarriage in the 8th month, to punish both the bitch and the child (after all it is a Demon). Hmmm…Interesting.
The ballroom was gorgeously decorated. While the ceremony was going on, we all had to enter the hall and take our seats graciously and with hushed respect for the he-who-sweats-profusely-attention-whore and of course the couple. At each table, there’s a sleek candle burning which throws off a very subdued glare that flickers sexily on the cutlery and on everybody’s glasses. We all also get a glass of juice served in a champagne glass as soon as we are seated. It is quite disappointingly only juice, but rightfully so considering the hall is filled with old ladies who might have all kinds of coronaries and aneurysms if they took a sip of the Devil’s liquid. Of course some of these cunning ladies might down quite a few alcoholic drinks before crying foul, you know, just for the sake of proprietary and for the plain fun of good ol’bitching.
Additionally, the ballroom had these beautiful chandeliers which are a trademark of the Holiday Inn. The twinkling, ostentatious chandeliers lent a lot of glamour to the whole thing. It was really nice sitting there, me in a pin-striped suit with a white shirt (no tie), my sister in a 25 year old vintage black, sequiny saree, at a table full of strangers but laden with a beautifully intricate lace table cloth with a gold border. You can’t help but notice these things sometimes.
Dinner was predictably Indian fare. After the obligatory Congratulations shout out by DJ Curzon, we took to the buffet table like, well, Sindhis. I felt like slapping an old man as he pretended to be lost and wedged in front of me in the line. I couldn’t of course you know, because too many people were watching. The food was, in this case, unpredictably quite good. At my cousin’s wedding two years back, at the Taj Samudra, a whole contingent of guests who travelled all the way from the Caribbean, fell sick after eating the buffet at the Mehendi. So embarrassing for us!! This girl’s tongue actually turned black after the incident. Luckily it passed within a day and she was all ready to soak up the free alcohol at the wedding a few days later.
Getting back to this wedding and of course the alcohol, the bar was unfortunately situated very near to a close group of relatives who were paying a lot of attention on my movements, like they knew I was going for the alcohol. In an imagined world I see all my uncles clapping high-five when they saw their son/nephews going towards the bar. They would say stuff like, ‘Oh thank god, I thought he was going to be, you know, chee, I don’t know how to say this, a non-drinking sissy’. That day will never come because Sindhi husbands are very much controlled by their ball-squeezing tough ass bitches that’ve been brought up on entire lectures on the dangers of drink. Sensible women. NOT.
But resourceful as I am I got a friend to sneak me a Bacardi Coke. It was sooo fucking strong. It was absolute bliss lah. Quickly gulped it down but I saw a few of my uncles give me disapproving looks. Tsk tsk. I still think they probably express disapproval because they’re so jealous since we have become so cocky and so secretly-public with our furtive drinking habits whereas they had to plan in advance some big day in which they could drink and be off their faces. Damn, I wasn’t even driving, I should have drunk more. In fact, at that fateful Mehendi mentioned above, I WAS driving but I still swigged away around eight Bacardi Cokes. It was only later that I was informed that I was supposed to take my mum, my sister, my aunt and my grandmother home. I handled it quite well but I’d rather not take the risk again. There is a certain something about having 70-80 bottles of wine, champagne, Bacardi, vodka, gin and whisky at your beck and call that makes you take risks!!
Anyway, let me comment on the people. As we all have heard a million times, Sindhi’s are very, very conscious about how they look in public. Therefore it was not surprising to see the glitterati out in full force. There were diamonds, amethysts, opals, emeralds and sapphires all glowing fiercely on the mostly wrinkled necks of middle to old aged women. The sarees were sometimes flawless, sometimes gaudy, sometimes elegant, sometimes looking like shit. The men were mostly dressed in expensive looking suits and it was sooo refreshing to see that a lot of my peers were being original and wearing uniquely coloured ties with nicely coloured shirts. My favourite combination was where the guy was wearing an orange shirt with a suede black tie. Very sleek.
The best part of all this is that even though the riches were quite obviously flowing effortlessly around the ballroom, it was NOT a high-profile wedding. The Joneses are always on the minds of wedding planners.
Seriously though, the wedding was faintly exciting as I got to see some people who I haven’t met in AGES. It was also quite scary to see the pretentiousness of it all but fuck it, it’s just up to us to have fun. I did have fun! I checked out people indiscriminately and imagined myself doing un-godly things on the stage when everyone had left. I also socialized and it was refreshing to have one or two intellectual conversations in the midst of the equally refreshing eight or nine bimbotic ones.
And then we left. We took our parting gifts of wedding cake and liquor chocolates and drove home. Absolutely sober. Damn.
Song of the moment: Try- Nelly Furtado
1 comment:
Hee. That was funny. Driving off drunk without your mom, sis, grandma, etc :D :D
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