It’s been a crazily prolonged winter this year – and along with the chilly winds comes the wedding season.
I think I must have attended about 8 weddings starting from last week December to first week of February, which as most people know means an average of 3 functions per wedding. Phew!!! Unlike my daughter in law who loves to dress up and is excited at the sight of an invite – I normally think of a wedding invitation as a chore. One has to figure out what gift to give, what to wear and worse, what to get my younger son to wear!!! He is such an aborigine, he lounges around in the minimum of clothes and thinks dressing up is such a waste of time.
The normal scene at home is something like this:
Esha comes home from work and spies the invitation and says “Oh goody, its Shaadi time!!! Mom,who is getting married. Where do we go? What do I wear”.
Kartikeya says “Oh my God, another one? Mom can’t we avoid this?”
Both of them start exchanging not so nice remarks about each other and I am left to organize the driver, the trip to the bank to check out the jewellery both of us women have to wear, the shagun etc. etc.
When D-Day comes, Esha is dolled up (and looking gorgeous I must add) well in time. Thanks to her, so am I. Kartikeya at around this time, normally wanders in still in his track suit and looks at us surprised “Dressed already? Oh my God, Bhabhi, what do I wear?” This leads to another friendly exchange of insults, but the up shot is that Kartikeya also gets dressed(quiet decently). Finally the Lalits are all dressed and ready to go for the party.
At the party, Kartikeya always manages to find us a table near the bar. Its an art, I must say. It ensures non stop supply of drinks and snacks. The down side is that we end up saying Hellojee, Namaste jee etc. to every one, even those crashing bores that we wish to avoid.
I have observed a very interesting thing. All men are dressed up warmly – and since Delhi-NCR is so cold this winter, many men are wearing mufflers and caps too. But the ladies, bless their brave souls, are gorgeously dressed in beautiful sarees and jewellery. Not one woman did I see at any of the wedding functions wearing a shawl, sweater or even warm socks. Who says that only men are brave. We women can face the most inclement of weathers with smiling fortitude!!!
Of course it is another matter that when we come home, we quickly get into thermal underwear, wrap ourselves in heavy warm quilts and sit in front of the heaters to thaw.
