Backfiring Expectations

This post is about a recent personal experience. Not so much a general post.

Prologue

This is not like the traditional prologue. But using the term all the same, just for flavour. 

December 2008, I’d gone with my mom, granny and my granny’s brother-in-law’s family (including his wife, 2 daughters i.e, my cousin maasis, and the elder maasi’s daughter, i.e. my cousin), totally 8 of us, on a pilgrimage to Palitana, a holy place of the Jains.

Both my maasis are settled in the USA, and my cousin was 6-7 years old then, when they’d come down here.

I was quite a few magnitudes of plumpness (if that’s a unit at all) plumper back then. And I had a clear face.

Over four days, I’d bonded really well with my cousin. It took a while to get her (and myself) to talk, because honestly, I find it really difficult to come up with ‘baby talk’. Not exactly baby talk, but something to engage a second grade kid. She was shy at first, always hiding behind her mom, as kids usually do, but she was surprisingly mature for her age, and as time went by, she got more and more comfortable, and my plump face probably supported the bonding.

We had an awesome time on the last day and in the train, discussing India, and the fields and jhopdas we saw from the train window, and cows, sheep and pigs (which unlike the pink American ones she was used to seeing, were a rude shade of black-grey-brown), and she was indeed very sad to see me get off at an earlier station.

I found it amazing how well she grasped things, and how excited she was to learn about the new things she saw here (having spent most of her years in the USA). Before she went back to the USA, we met once again at a get-together, and she was exclusively overjoyed when she saw me and spent most of the time with me. The best part being I enjoyed it too, and coming up with stuff to talk was hardly an issue.

3 years later.

December 2011, my younger maasi scheduled to wed in India. This would mean my cousin coming down to India! I was overjoyed, and waiting to see her, for though I’d been intermittently in touch with my elder maasi, I hadn’t directly spoken to her since.

As stated in an earlier post, I’d pulled down a lot, and looked a bit different, with pimples, a moustache and an excuse of a beard on my face.

I was supposed to go for the Sangeet Sandhya (Musical Evening). A large number of family members were participating in dance sequences, but I bailed out, citing random projects and travel issues as excuses. In fact, my cousin had asked about me as well! I was happy to hear that. Of course, as an aftermath, I regret not participating, because the dance learning process is indeed a lot of fun, coupled with loads of free, incredibly tasty junk food everyday for the participants.

Back to the main thing, I spotted my cousin as soon as I reached. Then stealthily I walked up behind her, and tapped her on the head with my index finger, expecting her to turn around and jump with joy.  

Turn around she did, and stood there gazing at me, not saying a word, perplexed.

I’d be wrong to say I’d not feared that would happen. She’d obviously not recognised me.

I said, “Hey, remember me?”

“No”

Goddam it. How bloody embarrassing. Luckily no one was nearby.

“Remember you’d gone to Palitana?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember Vishwa?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s me!”

A few seconds later, she said with a confused look on her face,

“You look different..” Then she walked off to her mom.

Curse my change in physique (for lack of a better word) and curse the damned pimples on my face.

Epilogue

Later that evening, when she was convinced that it was indeed me, we did catch up a bit. But amidst loads of other relatives and kids. That elated feeling of a long-lost cousins’ reunion that I'd expected had passed.

I always maintained that I’d changed for the better, healthier.

This was the first time I actually felt crap about having changed.

Vishwa.

The Grand Gujju Wedding I: Family Reunions

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.