The Just married Please Excuse Contest....

So ladies and gentlemen, let me come out of my tortoise shell of morbid posts and general gloom in my blog and jump on to this. Well I have read ‘ Yashodharalal ‘and has been an avid admirer of her blog for long, though a silent one at that, but I always admitted after reading her that she is the one who is actually doing the ‘BALANCING ACT’.

To take things forward , let me tell you that , my marriage day dawned after a lot of trepidations, why , because though we were of the same caste and region and religion etc. but still ours was a ‘love marriage’ and that too which had survived the ups and downs of time for the last 7 years. Though the sailing was rough but it was still manageable with regard to both set of parents and relatives , however, I was always worried about one thing and that was my husband’s (then would be) habit of coming late for everything , everywhere. I was and am still the total opposite of this, because of the same reason I was a bit worried, why worried?? Because after knowing him for so many years I was almost sure that he is going to miss the ‘muhurtham’(auspicious time for the marriage ceremony), and I had given him enough warning when I told him that “if you do not turn up on time, I am going to put the ‘mala’ on the next best available guy around”, well , I knew that he loved me enough not to mess things up.. but..you know women has their sixth sense and all…

Well on the marriage day, since morning, I had this strange things happening in my stomach, it was not pain, it was not discomfort, but it was something so tangible that I knew this was nothing but the essence of all my stress which has got itself accumulated in my stomach!!

Well, as it goes in most of the Malayali marriages, this was also to be held in the temple and we (the girls side ) had already reached the temple quite a few hours in advance, so the feeling of waiting gathered momentum all the more. Now with in no time the ‘Muhurtham’ was fast approaching and I got news from my cousins milling around me that the ‘boy’ and his party has still not arrived. Well ..I was almost in tears because I knew that if this day and ‘muhurtham’ things do not materialize then it will never do… I was in two minds … should I actually put the ‘Mala’ on the ‘next best available’… but then when there was exactly 3 minutes left for the ‘muhurtham ‘, the boy walked in with an obviously tensed disposition, and so was his parents (I later came to know that he had threatened his parents with dire consequences !! if he is not able to reach on time), and he almost jumped on to the ‘Mandapam’ (podium where the marriage ceremony is held) and in a jiffy the marriage ceremony was on, the thaali (mangalsutra) was tied in haste, and I remember almost running while doing the ‘pradakshinam’ or pheras , so that we do all the required ceremonies within the timeline… PHEW…. Once this was over, I could see the ‘boy’ grinning away shyly but with satisfaction and eyeing me out of the corner of his eyes.. I wanted to blast him then and there for I had warned him of this day and situation always….. (The Malayali Hindu marriages which as it is gets over in minutes seemed to have concluded in seconds in our case .. )

All is well that ends well.. so we thought..once the ceremonies were over and we proceeded to his house , once we reached there, me who was fresh out of crying and feeling overtly emotional , like every girl who gets married and leaves her parents home does , (though this was a marriage which I was eagerly looking forward to for the last so many years), was feeling totally lonely and out of place and awkward, though I knew all his family very well. The house itself was bursting out of its seams with relatives and friends and neighbours. We had reached his house around 4 pm, and I had hoped that by late evening people will leave, it seemed I was wrong, even the stair cases leading to the first floor where we had our room was filled with people , some standing, some sitting and talking, some having tea etc. I was made to sit on a bed with many more women and children around and it was almost 10 pm and there was no sign of any respite. My head was throbbing, I wanted to get out of the heavy sari , the jewellery, the flowers etc. and more importantly , I could not find my husband anywhere around for a long time.

And then another drama unfolded, I came to know around 11.00 pm from my sister in law that all the friends and cousins had kept our room under lock and key and had kept the key hidden, they wanted my husband to pay up a good amount if he wanted to enter it with his ‘dulhan’, well he refused to give up and so did they, eventually to cut a looong story short, by 12 pm , after intervention from my in-laws we were finally allowed to enter our room (my husband finally paid), but the condition from the cousins and friends was that - they insisted on him carrying me to the room ( beautifully decorated by them) and also that they will sit on the open space in the terrace, right in front of our room , the whole night or till they feel like !!! So the night was accompanied by hoots and songs and jokes out side our room in full swing.. and inside the two of us, who had got married ‘just on time’ after so much of waiting had just one thing in mind ‘Just married, Please Excuse’!!!