Sambhandha - The pleasent bonding.

I got my first push into the bride searching during this weekend. It was my cousin’s marriage, the first marriage that I attended from the beginning till the end. And there were lot rituals that I had no idea about. I don’t have an opinion about the significance of the rituals, but it’s all a lot of fun.

Here are some:

1. Sodu Munji/Kashi Yatra: The groom leaves for kashi not willing to get married. He wants to enter sanyasa directly. Then the father in law goes to him and calls him back to get married to his daughter.

2. The girls and the guy are separated by a panji (towel like cloth) with swastik mark on it. Both the guy and the girl are supposed to stare into the swastik for as long the matras are on. When the panji is lifted, the bride and the groom are supposed to put akshata on each other. Who succeeds in showering the akshata is supposed to dominate the married life.

3. The bride’s uncle (mama) has to carry the bride to the bride’s chair ( hase mane). He has to carry her in his arms and hand her over to the groom.

4. During the varamala session, the mama and the brother of the bride are to lift the bride so that the groom cannot put the varamala. This is again symbolic of how submissive the bride is going to be.

5. When the bride enters the new house (griha pravesh) she sings a series of 2 liners describing her love to her husband. These are called “ogatu haakodu” ( ogatu = puzzle)

6. The bride’s mother is supposed to sit on a three legged stool. The stool is called chowklani. I don’t know why this is done.

There are more, but thts all I can think of for now.

And now to the push part. I was shown to 3 middle aged ladies and was told later that they were the girl parents and they wished to see me. Shouldn’t the girl be interested in seeing me? What am I going to do by talking to the girl’s mom? To this my aunt said – ‘The girl will look like her mom when she is fifty. So look at how you want your wife to look when she is fifty’. Nice way to look at things. Very objective. This way I don’t have to think about how fat my wife is going to be, or whether she is going to have a double chin.. I know she is going to be as fat as her mom!! Phew! That makes the search much simpler.

There is a typical way in which the girl’s mom would talk to you. You can see it in their eyes. They would have an image of their daughter in their head. They see you, take your snap and put it next to their daughter, in their head. ‘Hmm.. looks good’ and they smile. You know they like you. Else they would make conversation with your mom and completely ignore your presence. You know you are rejected!

After I met with these 3 ladies, every lady who came to me to talk to me, familiar or unfamiliar, would be looked at with suspicion. “Does she have a daughter?”, “ Would she be beautiful? This lady is. So if she is not beautiful now, she would grow up to look beautiful just like her mom!”, “What do I say? I know I should not talk about her sexy daughter, and she is bent upon knowing how my onsite trips were and how long I was there. Should I answer? Has mom sent her to me?” All I did was smile for most questions and answer the absolutely necessary ones.

And these only make you think about marriage or rather the question to you is – why not marriage? Your family has all the reasoning and you fall back on only one thing – I don’t feel like. That is not even a reason according to them!!

So I am slowly being pushed into the whirlpool. But I am safe till next December, when my other cousin is getting married. The drama is going to be more intense then.

Btw, relationship is called sambandha. It means that it is a bonding that cannot be broken, but is a bond that is a pleasent one. And that is why it is called Sam-Bandha. This was what RSS head for south karnataka told us. :)

More later.

Sleepy - not so much.

Never felt this way, but have not been able to have a sound sleep for the last four weeks. Chili might go on with - 'Only babies sleep at 11' etc. But the point is, though I have been sleeping at 11 every day, I get up with eyes red and a feeling of tierdness. Initially I thought it would be just the jet lag, then I thought it could be the change of weather, then after 2 weeks I thougt it could be because I had to change my bed. Still trying to figure out what it is...

We had a project party a couple of days back. We had been to a hindi movie and then for dinner. I suggested to go for King Kong (Hindi), but you know the people around. They would prefer to go for a movie that they can crib about than come out laughing. So we went to Bluff Master. It was a nice movie. (Funda: All hindi movies are fun to watch. Never go by the TOI ratings). 10 mins before the movie started, we went into Firangi Paani. A nice cozy place serving drought beer. So we were tipsy as we went into the movie hall. There was no way that we did not like the movie!!

Then we went to a place called Chandini Chowk for dinner. Review of the hotel. But afterall, the food was okay, that's what mattered.

Interesting thing about this project party was, we managed to completely beat the purpose of a project party. We went to the movie, and then went for dinner. At the end of it all, I did not know even 5 out of the 20 people who came to the party. And while I thought that I was one of the more experienced in the group, I was totally taken by surprise when people started introducing themselves before leaving. But I enjoyed it. I dont care about the others..

Its friday night. Shall try to sleep early tomorrow ( by 2 AM saturday :)

It has been a long time since I wrote anything here. Long time since I had anything to blog.
I returned after 5 months in milwaukee. This time around was shorter than my last time but I was more excited to come back to bangalore than ever. Sitting on the 7th floor of NM north building with no one to talk to and the same work for 45 days was more than an experience I wanted to escape. So I am here.

There were more reasons to come back than just about sitting alone. Hitesh was to get married on dec 12th., my cousin on dec 27th and my brother is coming to Bangalore after 4 years, Shabari Mala in february... Could not have missed so many things for an extended onsite.

That brings to me Hitesh's marriage. . I could never see this guy getting married, he would never be old enough for marriage.. :) Not talking about how funny our dear friend looked at the marriage, I would restrict myself to my experice with Delhi. Chili, SP and I had gone to the marriage in Gurgaon. We stayed in Delhi in Tilak Marg in Chili's dad's guest house. It was in new delhi in the diplomatic area. One thing very impressive of delhi is the roads there. Every road is a 4 - 6 way lane with no potholes. It looks amazing, specially when you visit delhi from BANGpotholeALORE. The bus service in delhi is just too good. But mind you, it is just the service that is good not the busses. Then there is palika bazaar... I am not sure why there are markets of this kind. Why would people quote high prices and expect you to bargain? With bargain ignorant people like us, we are bound to get comprehensively looted. We realized our weeknesses soon enough to get out of the place. Then the cannought place. At 9 in the evening, we were in cannought place and I had this urge to have beer. After all the phone calling we found that there are a couple of good places around cannought place. We went to one called Ruby Tuesday. The people who live in delhi would laugh to read this. 3 mugs of beer, 2 mocktails = 1000 bucks!!! Looted again!!
The next day was the marriage. We were the only 3 friends of his and rest of them were family. We made a complete fool of ourselves by dancing in the middle of the road as hitesh rode on the horse back. But it was all fun.
Shall write separately about marriage some time. Or may be chili would have written by now..