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After effects

There’s been too many weddings lately. And I’d to think of ways to stay awake at most of them. After all, how much time can one spend making small talk with strangers and then keep bumping into them wedding after wedding until they start getting too familiar for comfort?

Or how long to wait in a queue to give a recycled gift to the newly weds while thinking whether to be inspired by the Symonds-Harbhajan feud and sue my mother for racism after all those times she called me monkey in my childhood? Come to think of it, how weird that Symonds is offended being called monkey but seems to be okay with Harbhajan abusing his ‘maa ki’!

However, having attended half a dozen weddings over the last two months, I’ve discovered that weddings require the plagiarism skills of Bollywood and the meticulous strategy of Scotland Yard.

For starters, economics is a key word at our weddings. But it’s cost cutting by cutting corners but no compromise on showmanship! So when Jignes decided to get married to Silpa, his parents visited Ikon at Churchgate pretending to be customers, asked for a fancy card sample, which they took straight to Gaiwadi in Girgaum and got it printed for half the price! On the other hand, Manish Malhotra has no idea that his store was visited by Silpa and her neighbourhood designer with a talent for imitation!

Meanwhile, Silpa’s dad phones their food specialist who shortlists caterers. Let’s call him Kalpesbhai, who calls up the caterers and expresses his desire to taste their menu. So the caterer invites Kalpesbhai to another wedding where he’s catering to give him a fair idea of his culinary skills.

Then Kalpeshbhai swoops down on that wedding with his wife Kokilaben, daughter Pinky and son Rasik. The family feasts on the dinner spread, oblivious of the 900 other guests at the wedding, and then discuss amongst themselves whether the undhiyu was too oily or the malai malpua lacking in malai. If the caterer fails the gastronomic test then Kalpesbhai repeats the process with the next caterer on his list until he’s found the one who passes this appetite aptitude. By the end of this exercise, Kalpesbhai and his family have collectively put on 100 kilos.

Now if I could only bump into Ratan Tata at the buffet to discuss my prototype for a car cheaper than Nano—which can be pedaled instead of driven!

sureshnair2004@gmail.com