Wedding Ding Ding
(Beware: Long and self-indulgent)
Aloha brothers and sisters and all you hot women out there! I welcome you from the lush green shores, clear blue waters and highly anti-incumbent political scenario of my wonderful home state of Kerala. It drizzles for a few hours everyday but not enough to cool the nights. I still wake up in the morning leaving a ‘portly man’-shaped sweat stain on my bed. The silence on the blog is because of a cousin’s wedding which has kept all of us here up all day and night for the last one week.
Few people know of mallu weddings. At least not remotely as well as they know of Tam Brahm, Punju, Bong or any one of the other more glamorous wedding processes from around the country. Tam Brahms have their breaking pappadums on the head, the highly comical Kashi Yatra and making the bride sit on her father’s lap thingies. (Or maybe maternal uncle’s lap.). Bongs carry the bride around the ceremonial fire. Punjus are the Texans of India. They do everything bigger, better and fluffier.
Mallu Christian weddings however are simple uncomplicated affairs. They last for half a day at most and the entire sequence of events is designed to culminate in a steaming rich and flavorful lunch served with great care and attention to detail. The meal is truly the cynosure of all eyes and opinions during the wedding.
A few months ago I had the great fortune of attending my first full blown North Indian Wedding. If I remember correctly the bride and groom were both from UP but I do not remember what communities. One may have been Bania. But it had all the elements of a big opulent ‘northie’ wedding. The baraat went from Delhi to Chandigarh, stopping every few kilometers so that the children could pee under trees while the band could play a few Bollywood essentials. Some of the boys smoked behind the buses.
The venue was covered with yards and yards of shiny cloth in reds and pinks with shiny golden tassels. I was dressed, for the occasion, in a smooth new upmarket branded suit. It was, however, woefully inadequate against reams of silk and gold threaded sherwanis and the like.
It was well into a chilly winter and there were little gas fired heaters placed all around the huge grass lawn. Around each heater were circles of plastic chairs where well-fed aunties in almost-bursting silk blouses (clichéd but true) and salwar suits sat and gossiped while their children ran around upsetting glasses of juice and flower pots. I walked around overawed by the whole spectacle for some time.
The couple was presented with gifts, mostly in thick little envelopes. One of the photographers, apparently a CNN-IBN employee specially drafted for the occasion, told me that the couple made enough with those envelopes to have a very decent honeymoon. Once in a while some of the relatives did things like lifting the groom so the bride could not garland him which I found a little bizarre at first. But then I have not yet seen Hum Aapke Hai Kaun which is supposed to be a must watch for northie wedding novices.
All the while the brother of the groom walked around with a thick wad of notes. Crisp pink thousand-rupee ones that he kept handing out every few minutes.
Waiters in rather smart jackets went around with platters of paneer, chicken and prawn. The booze was being served in trolleys. You asked the man for a drink, any drink, and he quickly made it for you and even wrapped a little paper napkin around each glass. After three hours of ‘screwdriver’ drinking I gave up. I was told he was still pushing around the trolley till 3 in the morning. The dinner had at least 30 dishes. Maybe there was more but there were too many tables all around to cover them all. The wedding finally got over at 4 in the morning in a little room which stood apart form the lawn. The pujari made cute jokes which most of the family laughed. But I was a little drunk and very sleepy and missed most of them.
On the other hand for the last one week I have been stationed almost permanently at the local parish hall here in Pavaratty. It is a whitewashed two-storey building a stone’s throw away from the parish church that was built only a few years ago. But every year the ceiling begins to sag a little and they add a few more pillars to support the weight. So much so that the main dining hall is now called the Madurai Meenakshi temple because of all the pillars that obscures your views and gets in the way of all the waiters. (Rumours abound that the then parish priest siphoned out cement from the construction to build a house for his brother. And apparently he used the ambulance from the parish hospital to carry out the deed. Such are the conspiracies my little village cherishes.) The engineer who worked on the hall also designed my uncle’s (the bride’s) house. They live in mortal fear.
My uncle, the father of the bride, and the brother of the author’s father, is not one for shows of opulence or wanton spending of riches. (Not that he has too much of both. He is a simple little man who has worked in the same bank since graduation and refused any higher promotions because he did not want to work in Calcutta or Delhi. Tanjavur was the farthest he would go.) Left to him he would just get the bride, groom and priest in a little room and be done with it. However he does believe in making sure the lunch is a blockbuster. “They will only remember the fish, chicken and pork,” he’d say, “not the bride or groom or priest or videographer.” When I was younger I used to vehemently disagree. But now I know he is right. A relative’s wedding a year or so ago is still remembered only for the fried rice which was too cold, the chilly chicken that had too much soy sauce and the ice cream that was melted in the cup.
So I was there when they counted out 95 skinned and quartered chickens, chopped up 55 kilos of the most wonderfully fresh and firm fish chunks and suddenly discovered they were short of 15 litres of curd for the consolation vegetarian dish. (Kaalan. Raw bananas cooked in a thick, tangy coconut based gravy served at room temperature.) All this of course is much more complicated than it sounds. Five cooks with ultra short tempers and always a little tipsy on Old Cask Rum are highly nerve-wracking to manage. I ran around in my Adidas tracks and oversize check ‘work shirt’ with my cellphone pasted to my ear. At 3 or 4 in the morning the cooks have a habit of asking for the most ridiculous things. Three kilos of old newspaper. Two packets of macaroni. (Only elbow please.) At one point we even had to grind our way through 5 kilos of masala. Half for the fish and half for the chicken, we had to do it with an old gulf return mixer-grinder that could do one tea cup worth at a time. It took two hours. But all this is to be expected.
What was not expected was that a couple of allegedly Muslim League supporters would hack to death the Corporation Chairman of Chavakkad (a staunch leftist) the night before the wedding. Within minutes there were cars burning and stones hurling and hartal declaring. Policemen everywhere to prevent retribution murders.
Saying there was complete panic would be a colossal understatement. The groom was still kilometers away in a little hamlet called Kottekad. It was a given that more than half of the 800 or so invitees would not be able turn up. There were rumours that there would be violent road blocking the next day and even the usual concession for wedding party convoys may not be extended by the severely upset commies. I was called for a top level huddle of male relative to decide on further action. The oldest, and alas the loudest, couple of uncles and grandfathers were allowed to speak as much as they wanted. Then, once they had left, we regrouped without them and planned. A few bottles of beer were popped open.
But the greatest worry was that the shops would be closed and the cooking would come to a complete and agonizing stop. In fact at that point in time the only part of the proceedings completely ready for action was the alcohol supplies. Three cases of KF and enough bottles of rum, brandy and whisky had been stashed away the night before. (And already partaken of but my uncle did not know this of course.)
But the famed mallu resilience (but not as much as the ‘resilience of the mumbaikar’) kicked in and all of us were up all night. The groom was shipped in overnight before dawn. Asianet News said that the hartal would kick in at 6 in the morning. I called the Manorama office to reconfirm. We secretly opened up a couple of the local provision stores and shipped out provisions from the back doors. The waiters and table setters indicated at midnight that they would not be able to come. Which meant we had to come up with a serving team of 25 as soon as possible. We did. Somehow. Distant relatives and any able bodied males were drafted in on sight.
It suddenly occurred to me that we had not checked if the priest was in station. A couple of frantic calls later we were told by a grumpy security guard that the priest would come in at 3 in the morning. Our priests are mostly nice and very eager to please the parishioners. Sort of like the ones you read about in Blyton or something. Though there are the occasional cement thieving ones.
At 11:15 the next morning, a few minutes behind schedule, the families made it to the church with a cloud of photogrgaphers and light-boys swarming around. Only half the invitees could make it in time for the Mass in church but, as expected, many more of them made it to the lunch after the service. I ran between the church and parish hall. There were photos to be taken at one end and banana leaves to be cut and cleaned at the other.
We served everything in large luxurious portions, partly because nothing spread faster than the gossip that the Vadukuts were stingy with their chicken or held back on the fish curry gravy, but mostly because we did not want to be loaded with tons and tons of leftovers.
By evening the official result was out. The lunch was a brilliant success. The chicken was cooked with great flavour, the fish was cooked to delicate, flaky perfection and the rice soaked up gravy just like it should. After sizeable dispatches of food to the local nursing college (a charitable institution for girls from poor families) and waiting for all the beggars to have their fill (and pack small packets in banana leaves for their later consumption) we carried the rest home in buckets. Not too much. Nothing we couldn’t eat through in a couple of days.
I sat in the evening and tried to sort out the few gifts and presents they received. Pressure cookers, casseroles, gold coins, some money and a few cheques. Nothing good enough for a honeymoon. Maybe enough for a trip to Thrissur, a new Mohan Lal movie and a dinner at Thrissur Towers, a swanky place where all the rich tourists stay.
So all in all I guess the wedding was a great success. There was no horse or brass band. No bespoke suits and gas heaters. No jacketed waiters and no trolleys of drinks by any means. Only a whole bunch of young men in stained white dhotis and crumpled shirts with aching backs smelling of fish. But the lunch was good and my cousin calls from Calicut every morning. She finds her in-laws wonderful but is still too bashful to talk about her husband.
I, on the other hand, need to go now because my uncle tells me some of the bills for the hall rental and the stage decoration still need to be settled. And my little nephew is watching Pokemon too loudly. That is not blogging-friendly at all you must agree.
Phew!!!Sounds like a very well covered Chriatian Mallu wedding….!!
Oooooooooooops….I mean Christian!
That was a lovely look-in on that great drama called marriage around which we Indians structure our lives! Notice how marriages in the family become reference points for chronological calculations – “when this one got married…” or “2 years/2 months/2weeks/2days/2hrs etc after/before that one got married etc”. And of course the food – there will always be the many naysayers – always playing difficult to please.
I know what u r talking abt – belong to the same race – tho a slightly different sub-species. Our weddings are even simpler – blink and you’ll miss the event itself – and most people do manage to miss it thanx to the videographers who literally choreograph the entire event to their own aesthetic satisfaction. So all that people really remember are the kaalans, olans, payasams etc etc etc (there just are too many to list).
As for the excessively/obsessively politically animated people that we are – the rains and hartals (by the way, that word is illegal – remember the SC has banned this potent means of public catharsis for our race) are the 2 things that we mallus are prepared for all the time – both are ever-present – if not in real terms then always as a potential in our little country. The rains/bandh is/was/will be on…
This was a fantastic piece of writing describing the preparation that accompanies a wedding in Kerala with all the drama that is associated with it. Keep it up.
AP
i think the best way to have a wedding is with the immediate family and closest friends only. otherwise you have random people dropping by who dont give a damn about the people who are getting married and come only to carry tales or create it.
did you forget to pay the priest in a small pink envelope his dues?
that was excellent writing and absolutely hilarious
Tell me about it!!
my sister’s wedding was just 2 months ago…typical mallu marthomite wedding i add. luckily we had no hartal, but plenty of other drama..well, i guess nothing in my world would be complete without drama!
well… u were sorely missed , glad u r back n writing.
Hows the book coming along?
very true … you’ve said it as it is… the mundus , crumpled shirts tons and tons of rice, chicken ,fish , etc are trademarks of mallu catholic weddings .. while reading this piece, i could almost smell the food and feel the heat inside the dining hall
Much happiness came when today I saw those stars after you name in my blogroll, you seem to be so resourceful, nice crisis management skills too
*Kusum makes note of al this, just in case she needs to hire some event organiser*
Sidin back on a roll..
chk out http://vviks.blogspot.com/
Ah the quintesential Christian mallu wedding you gotta love it man. Plus the old cask rum the night before, have downed a few of those my days in Kerala too.
Good to have you back.
Never been to one of
those down south
but I can almost smell it..
Been to plenty of northie ones
to not want to remember
them too often
Great writing.
I looked at the post title on my feeds, got excited thinking that its some good news, only to find a great description of the weddings! :o)
You know, we “northies” are pretty ostentatious when it comes to weddings! And you went to a Bania wedding.. As a bania, I can say that the money transactions during the whole course of bania weddings probably match up with that in Las Vegas casinos!!!!
I love christian weddings. For my wedding I left home ard 10.30am and by 6.30pm I was back home with my husband (this is after the whole kazcha thing too).
‘a dinner at Thrissur Towers, a swanky place where all the rich tourists stay.’
You clearly are taking the piss there, I presume…that place is nothing but SKANKY!
hey sidin,
no beef at the wedding? I thought beef was big in Kerala.
These days people don’t really bother much about the cooks, the whole cooking thing is handled by the catering guys. They arrive with the prepared food a few hours before the lunch time and with young guys to serve it.
The most expensive part of the wedding is the booze party on the day before the wedding day. (mostly Saturday evenings).
real light “your-own” post feel…
As to christian weddings they atleast last a few hours. I missed photographing my cousin’s wedding coz by the time I turned on the digicam and got it into the indoor mode, they’d already done it!!
Hilariuos as usual ….
A pakka Xtian Mallu Wedding …
Should add that the smell of the fish is usually accompanied by the smell of alcohol
“yo-ho-n-a-bottle-of-rum”
Excellent writing.
The descriptions of the ‘other kinds’ of mallu weddings reminds me of why my sis’ mil wanted a tam brahm wedding for her son and not a mallu one. I hope they enjoyed 3 days of feasting and fete’ing.
Yours was a lean-mean mallu christian wedding - but no lack of drama here either.
hey Sidin,
Thanks for visting my blog…ya, this city will give u lots to write….but Im not gettning time….sales..poor me in…jotting down points so that can blog post summers….
Finding it tuff to finish ur long pieces…..life in B School is better I guess…wanna get back to insti
Funny!
Wish I was there. The food sounds like it was to kill for.
that was a well covered article on ur sisters wedding. I guess she will be glad for the media coverage!!!
an article after a real long time…but a treat to read.
majja maadi
great post dude as usual.. u rock
he’s back people!!!
we all missed you sidin. In fact for a while we thought there wasn’t going to be an April entry.
Anyway glad to read about the wedding going off well.
yippeee!!…..he’s back people!!!
we all missed you sidin. In fact for a while we thought there wasn’t going to be an April entry.
Anyway glad to read about the wedding going off well.
Glad you are back.
How’re your books and quizzes coming along??
Me.
I went to a north indian wedding a decade back and I still remember it like it was yesterday..
There was this hurriedly erected shamina in one of the public parks in West Delhi during mid-winter and in the entrance was this big announcement board with floral borders and white thermocole letters - in red velvety background- which said ‘Pinky Weds Bunty’…for a minute I thought I had gone to a pedigreed mating afffair and it took several days to get over it..
(During summer the same ground hosts cricket matches at night with powerful in the boundary line acting as floodlights..once I saw Sehwag playing a night match in the same ground…that’s another story..)
mebe
Hilarious.. As ever. Keep it up !
Dear sidin chatten,
fabulous writing got a jist of all the fabolous things that happened in the kalyanam. Please do write pieces like this cause i will come to know what is happening and plus i can increase my vocabularie. I daddy and mummy read it together. We all say keep it up. FANTASTIC!!!!!!!
Amazing … totally hilarious
Waaah!! u said it well sidin.. but I have never heard a Christian mass being conducted at 11:15.
Simple wedding and a memory to cherish.. does your cousin know that you blog? Send the link to her.. I am certain that she’ll love it.
Pal
Nice readin abt the familiar Thrissur style wedding!
Well I’m having my OWN mallu wedding next month. Already sweating when thinking of standing in a suit in May heat in a sweaty hall..
Outsourcing food to caterers seems to be the in-thing back in kerala; tht way the night-before tension on prepng food can be avoided!
Gettin jitters thinking somethin might go wrong!Hope no hartals are declared on the day
Have a post on my desparate attempts to get in shape b4 the d-day!Do click on my name for the same
cheers
flaash
Hahahahaha!!!
Brought back memories of home! Particularly the hartal….
apna desi wodehouse !!
extremely funny, reminded me of some of the kerala weddings I have attended…keep it up!
awesome stuff..been following your writings (offline more regularly than your online musings) for quite sometime ..first time i’m leaving a comment though
great way to capture the moment!!
weddings are sure fun, whether north or south indian…the last minute hassles just add to the memories of it
Well coming to your blog for the first time. You must be creative enough to find a better name name than Monday I am sure . No MONDAY Please. I have reservation for the word “Monday” I am sure you will read the comments people left at BBC site.
Great One. My mouth almost watered thinking abt the food i eat in christan weddings, back there in home.
Hima
funny, i think thts the way most mallu wedding are held. sort of controlled chaos and nair wedding are the blink and you miss types.
Your description of a northie wedding reminded of my own experience at my acquaintance’s wedding. She is a Rajasthani Jain from a stinking rich textile trading family. But I was little prepared for the show of riches at her wedding.
On entry, we were attacked by a perfume dispensing machine (Believe it or not, my salwar smelt of the stuff 4 washes later)
There was a mock papier-mache mountain , complete with a live waterfall!!.The food arrangement was spread over 4 floors (one for chaat,one for desserts and other two gourmet veg.)The chaat floor had live folk dance.All this left me wide-eyed, but still ill-prepared for the finale.
I was walking around, working up an appetite for the four-floor spread. I saw a very beautiful statue of a girl in Rajasthani costume.Wanting to take a good look, I moved closer. Then I realised, horror of horrors, that the eyes were looking back at me, with a sadness that still sends shivers down my spine.
Yes, that was no statue, it was a living,breathing human being, pretending to be a statue . I guess this was supposed to be the ultimate in decoration - making a woman stand as a show-piece.
Then I realised that there were lots of statues around - a few men too.
Not even the thought of four floors of food spread could revive my appetite- i left after wishing my friend.
To everybody - my intention was not to spoil the lightness of Sidin’s narration. But those eyes still haunt me
Opened the post thinking it was an update on urself
Nevertheless a very good read for myself!
From an email
> > HOTEL KERALA-FONIA
> >
> >
> >
> > On the road to Trivandrum
> >
> > Coconut oil in my hair
> >
> > Warm smell of avial
> >
> > Rising up through the air
> >
> > Up ahead in the distance
> >
> > I saw a bright pink tube-light
> >
> > My tummy rumbled, I felt weak and thin
> >
> > I had to stop for a bite
> >
> > There he stood in the doorway
> >
> > Flicked his mundu in style
> >
> > And I was thinking to myself
> >
> > I don’t like the look of his sinister smile
> >
> > Then he lit up a petromax
> >
> > Muttering “No power today”
> >
> > More Mallus down the corridor
> >
> > I thought I heard them say
> >
> >
> >
> > Welcome to the Hotel Kerala-fonia
> >
> > Such a lousy place,
> >
> > Such a lousy place (background)
> >
> > Such a sad disgrace,
> >
> > Plenty of bugs at the Hotel Kerala-fonia
> >
> > Any time of year
> >
> > Any time of year (background)
> >
> > It’s infested here
> >
> > It’s infested here
> >
> >
> >
> > His finger’s stuck up his nostril
> >
> > He’s got a big, thick mustache
> >
> > He makes an ugly, ugly noise
> >
> > But that’s just his laugh
> >
> > Buxom girls clad in pavada
> >
> > Eating banana chips
> >
> > Some roll their eyes, and
> >
> > Some roll their hips
> >
> > I said to the manager
> >
> > My room’s full of mice
> >
> > He said,
> >
> > Don’t worry, saar,I sending you
> >
> > meen karri, brandy and ice
> >
> > And still those voices were crying from far away
> >
> > Wake you up in the middle of the night
> >
> > Just to hear them pray
> >
> >
> >
> > Save us from the Hotel Kerala-fonia
> >
> > Such a lousy place,
> >
> > Such a lousy place (background)
> >
> > Such a sad disgrace
> >
> > Trying to live at the Hotel Kerala-fonia
> >
> > It is no surprise
> >
> > It is no surprise (background)
> >
> > That it swarms with flies
> >
> >
> >
> > The blind man was pouring
> >
> > Stale sambar on rice
> >
> > And he said
> >
> > We are all just actors here
> >
> > In Silk Smitha-disguise
> >
> > And in the dining chamber
> >
> > We gathered for the feast
> >
> > We stab it with our steely knives
> >
> > But we just can’t cut that beef
> >
> > Last thing I remember
> >
> > I was writhing on the floor
> >
> > That cockroach in my appam-stew was the culprit,
> >
> > I am sure
> >
> > Relax, said the watchman
> >
> > This enema will make you well
> >
> > And his friends laughed as they held me down
> >
> > God’s Own Country? Oh, Hell!
Nice post, its a really cool blog that you have here, i like the way you present things, keep up the good work, will be back.
Expect more from you…
Warm Regards
Biby Cletus :-
You might enjoy reading this blog :- Mass Agitations - Manias and Phobias