The lull after the storm

After three deadly weeks of a##kicking work, i left from work on the 13th, for a three day hiatus from ppts and draft docs, followed by a weekend to top it. Saturday (17th) was my cousin brother's marriage. Apart from the usual frenzy of running around and arranging things, home was chock-a-block with relatives. 18 of them kids, elders and youngsters included. The number started from a decent 8 on Wednesday, to 15 on thursday, and finally quorum accounted to 18 family members by Friday. We had already booked the guest house of our society for the occasion. Thanks to our Mallu neighbour, who had the heart to offer two of his rooms for the nights, we had a total of two and a half houses to sleep in. Imagine the plight of a 1,300 sq feet, 3 BHK+ servant quarter house swarmed by seven brothers and sisters, their spouses and their children and their childeren....

Wednesday and Thursday flew past with shopping for sundries comprising of stuff ranging from clothes to electronic items; venues being Chandni Chowk, Lajpat etc. etc. Shopping doesnt end there,mind you. Every day there would be something or the other that would have to be purchased. And then we would get started towards Achy (Acharya niketan, the local shopping street in the vicinity) in groups of three and sometimes four, divide our purchases to save time so that we could get back home to devour the steaming rice and curries mom and aunts would have made by then. The icing on the cake was the evening chai when everyone would gather in the living room, chit chatting with a fair share of munchies being circulated among all.

Friday evening was a mix of masti and tension. Uhm... masti for us and tension for the elders. I have seen that the latter have a tendency of planning and re-planning and re-re-planning things. At the end of the day, we would be left wondering about the 352,569 plans they discussed since morning, not aware of what exactly was the final decision on the topic.

Mallus dont have anything close to a Mehndi function, so we called the guy who sits on the roads of Achy over to our house in the evening. We did our mehndi thing the quiet way. By 7.30, all the girls in the house were reeking of eucaliptus oil and henna with the paste strewn out in floral patterns all over our palms. It was then followed by a chotu sa dance party. We obviousy couldnt have had our dinner with the iky brown stuff on our palms; so our aunt fed all of us one by one... Yar!.. esi shadiyan roz roz hoti to....

Then came Saturday- Joure De Royale, when Bhaiya tied the knot with my punju bhabhi. The wedding first took place in the mallu style, then in the punju style with hawan and all. The number of pics taken that day is unbelievable. The marriage(s) was followed by a reception party in the evening.That meant yet another bout of make up, dressing up in jhintak clothes, kids running around with their ma's yelling at them to get ready, and a row of vehicles with the huge Warrier family (uhm.. no pun intended ok) and so on. To sum it up, by Saturday night, there was an army of absolutely exhausted mallus, a house full of luggage and paraphernalia, and of course piles of clothes, gifts and food/sweet packets and sundry lying all over the place.

The funniest sight was our chappal stand... I mean someone should see the view to believe me. Looked like a nightmare.. there were at least 25-27 pairs (chappals, sandals, shoes everything included) of different sizes and colours and styles. One of those days, my Mausaji spent half an hour polishing my Mamaji's shoes by mistake... heh.... And here comes the joke of the event .. yeah.. my other cousin bhaiya (who's the elder bro to the dulha here), couldnt find his shoe on the the marriage reception's night, 'cause one of my uncles had already left for the function wearing it...

We all took some time off on Sunday, which basically meant cleaning upthe house, which further meant putting up a lost and found corner for various things forgotten at our place by people, including accessories, clothes, kerchiefs, etc. By evening, Mumbai walahs flew off to their nest, people from Bangalore flew back to Bangalore, and Mamas and Mamis from Kerala started packing their stuff.

The week that followed all this hubbub was extremely depressing and lousy. After everyone had gone back, my home seemed to large for the three of us. It was at the same time that days at work had become a little more chilled out giving me more time to remember and sulk about the nice few days all of us spent together.

It is now that things have come back to normal; i guess Ma would take some more time to adjust to the change. Every night i reach back home, only to find her speaking to my Mausiji or my Mamiji over the phone, about topics she would invent on the spot. Maybe she does that as an unconscious attempt to console herself that her people are still around her. Poor Ma. She is alone in the house for almost the whole day. Bhai and me are never at home, and she is left all alone with the unbelievably vain and useless Mallu evening soaps. Sometimes I wonder why life couldn't be a tad bit simpler. I could have had more time for her then; more time for a lot of other things as well.

Over and Out....