This post is not a wedding-bashing. A subsequent one might just be, though. This is actually about the beauty of correctly timed weddings.
I wonder how the situation is for you, but I reached an all-time low on in-family socializing during my +2. Thanks to the stiff competition, wasting even one minute of time was like losing 1 rank in the JEE, and getting closer to ruining your life, and this pretty much prevented me from attending any family gathering. In fact, I had'nt even seen 2 of my new born cousins during this time (shamefully), until last year.
The huge, awesome winter holiday IIT gives us is surely a blessing. It is enough time to catch up with all those you've missed and who've missed you (of course, that's if you haven't gone on an out-station internship to keep up with the competitive times, or you aren't a final year-ite sitting for placements/apping, or an MI CG, or an inter-IIT player (basically, if you are completely lukkha)). Twas one for me definitely, last year, when 3 weddings happened over 2 sides of my family during December, and not during MI.
When meeting family members after a long time, it does feel very awkward. There's that little guilt inside, that tinge of regret for not having met or spoken to them for so long. More so when you know they'd been around when you were young, playing with you and allowing you to win always, gifting you toffees et al, cheering you up and calming the tantrums. Meeting my maasis (mom's younger cousins) felt just that way. They would come for me from all across Mumbai, when I was little. They'd all grown up too, and now have kids, whom I'd barely met or spoken to, let alone played with, since the last few 'career building' years.
So two of the weddings, which happened to be on my maternal grandmother' s side, were the means for me to get in touch with my long lost brothers and sisters (9 in total). I had a ball! 2 toddlers, and the rest progressively increasing in age till me. Being the eldest of them all, I do get (command? :P ) a lot of respect, but more so, those few days of the several, several pre-wedding and wedding functions helped us all bond really well. It was heavily nostalgic for me, in the sense that I'd bonded a lot as a kid with my maasis. Time spent with cousins is precious! Especially the much younger ones. It feels good that they look up to you for a lot of things.
The first thing you hear about yourself on meeting the older generation after a long interim, is the unbelieving way in which they say 'he has grown up quite a lot, hasn't he!' While that would seem obvious at first, I'd realize later how on one hand I was always a little kid to them, and how ~1o odd years hardly seems like a long time-span at that age. So while you might've grown, you're still the apple of your grandmom's eye.
Though it may not seem obvious at first, your grandparents introducing you to several new aged people, going out of their way to connect you to their distant acquaintances, making your educational background etc. known is all for a reason. As 20 somethings, we are next in line! (To get married, I meant.) All eyes are on us. Its almost like a way of mating, for families. The way we dress, the way our parents dress, the jewellery (which may even be borrowed, but as long as that is not known, no one cares) and the expensive suits are all (supposed to be) indicative of how well settled we're expected to be, and whether we'll be able to take sufficient care of the needs and wants of their pretty daughters! Of course, we have our own ideas about that.
Meanwhile, I'd pulled down a lot, over 3 years of studying (and subsequently forgetting) engineering, and couldn't help but swell with pride as I heard people compliment my new-found fitness (as I'd like to think so). That, however, wasn't stopping me from gorging on the awesome food in inhuman quantities.
Wedding coming up again, correctly timed! Which is kind of what inspired this post. This time, my maternal grandfather's side, and hence a different set of cousins! And different unknown people to put up a good show in front of.
I hope to write more on a Gujju wedding in a subsequent post. Its one of the most extravagant affairs I've come across so far, extravagance born out of warmth, enthusiasm and the need for perfection! Hence the numbered title.
Vishwa.
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