house full of Bride grooms!!

House full of Bride Grooms

With due apologies to Rohit Shetty, the face book police, all fundamentalists who might come and arrest me, and slap me for merely thinking aloud; I would like to shed some light on an incident that I witnessed on Sunday.

Sunday, was a day of joy, cheer where lakhs of (un) suspecting couples were joining themselves in holy matrimony all thinking of a life full of bliss and happiness. This was all due to the fortunate planetary alignment of the stars that were most favorable. My niece was also getting married; we were a bag of mixed emotions, happiness, cheer, sorrow, and all straight out of a Bollywood movie. The star cast was all present; we had drama, sophisticated women in their finery, dripping diamonds, beautiful kohl-lined eyes hidden behind mafia-esque glasses to shield one against the merciless sun. The men were all dressed to kill, handsome resplendent in their suits, and a rainbow of pastel colored turbans. All ready for the ceremony, in a fairy –tale sitting with the flowers still touched by the dew gently.

We all were ready for the ceremony that was performed beautifully; the music traditional sung piously keeping in mind the sanctity of the ceremony. A Sikh wedding is simple, sung to the raags all of them taken from the holy book pure, simple and honorable all sacred and holy.

Well the fourth phera took place, we all were teary and glazed eyes, the sniffing had started and the groom’s side was all smiling and congratulatory. And suddenly there was a silent rumble, a stirring of noise and commotion happened. Not one, two, or three but seven other grooms who were in line for their ceremony bombarded the ceremony. It was so comic!

Satte pe Satta and the jostling by the women folk. We forgot whether to cry, smile .In fact; in the chaos and confusion that ensued we forgot to cry for our niece. The sanctity and the purity of the occasion diluted with a fat women jostling behind me, trying to edge into the place so that her son could be the next groom! We had two on the right side where the men sat and one peeping Tom from the side door. It was as if we were playing musical chairs so that one groom could quickly take the place and rush in! The solemn moment all lost, with the movie man trying to take pictures that would exclude the extra grooms to be! We had my aunt (a darling) up in arms with a frown to battle it out to ensure that the moment be preserved for us, but it was alas lost with all the extra baraatis trying to edge in. The bhaiji (caretaker ) had a tough time to distribute the Prasad among the righteous first wedding wallas.

I have heard of traffic, and traffic jams and people queuing in serpentine lines for kerosene and other ration items; but never ever have I seen a queue of grooms all lining up to get married! It indeed was an explosion and a comedy of errors, with our desi Shakespaeare wallah laughing away due to an alignment of stars all wanting to get married at the same time.