The morning after

What are sanskari Indian weddings made of? Before Shahid Kapoor or Neil Nitin Mukesh can answer, here is what we have been brought up to believe.

After the countless rituals and the endless wait for the Big Night — which for some reason has everyone else in the family in a heightened state of arousal — comes the test. Of friends and family teasing the two of you with surprisingly crass jokes loaded with sexual innuendos. Heck, it even makes the grandmothers and aunties turn into fierce coquettes. Their candour and felicity with x-rated language will leave even the most liberal, progressive young person red in the face. I mean, Dadi talking dirty?! Preeti-the-Pious-Aunty patting your cheeks with: “Don’t be shy... we will be all ears!” But they get away with it all, thanks to their vintage.

At the end of it all, you will find yourself in a room with a bed done up in roses and smelling of OTT room fresheners. If this sexually charged atmosphere is not enough, there would be a glass of the traditional male aphrodisiac — a glass of kesar milk. Only the most thoughtful will also slip in a strip of Digene perhaps. I mean, with all the fasting and feasting, can you really handle a glass of kesar milk?!

If you are still following the Bollywood script till this point, you will jump into the bed and get into the action as though your life depended on it. Because next morning, all eyes will be on that door, on the sheets, the curtain of flowers on the bed posts and on every strand of hair out of place. Inferences about the man’s libido and the woman’s capacity to match it will be drawn, basis the visual clues.

This chain of events has been immortalised in Bollywood and in popular culture. But how is it different in a marriage where the two are not-so-innocent-partners after all. What happens when having sex the first time that two strangers are together is not a matter of life and death? Are there the same kind of pressures to perform and please the world? Get a report card signed off by the seniors in the family? Pressures are there alright, but of a different kind.

Perhaps suhaag raat sex has been replaced by Valentine’s day romp, getting naughty during Navratri or 31st Night debauchery. But no pictures or naughty notes to share the morning-after-whenever is detrimental to your social (media) standing. No clasped hands, entwined feet, kissing GIFs don’t augur well for your image and your future as a hot single.

The wait may also have been stretched just a wee bit longer. Till the flight takes off for Goa or Switzerland, Andaman or even Darjeeling for that matter. And if you happen to be on the other side of a ‘just married’ on a flight, god help you. Chances are, you will have to endure two to three hours at least, of a supercharged couple feeding each other Cuppa Noodles and Cornitos, as though their life depended on it.

Scribbler, scribe, traveller — Chandrima Pal takes you through the sexual landscape of today