Bride to be

Bride to be
Oct 20
It all started at the New Year (Saal Mubarak) get-together of my mom’s side, I mean my mother’s relatives. From my 84 years ba who can hardly walk to 4 mamas and one masi and their kids, my innumerable cousins and four of us – The Doshi parivaar and also the ‘would be jijaji’ all were there. Kanan ben is getting married in November and it’s a really happy occasion. While seeing and appreciating her trousseau (I think 4 sarees and 6 dresses = 11) I was given special attention by one and all as I am ‘the bride to be’ and need to start taking training of things which obviously includes shopping. (I don’t understand what such a big deal about shopping is?) Nevermind….so I am the bride to be. I am engaged almost for one and a half years (it’s way too long a courtship period for Gujurati standards) and my best friend…oopps! My fiancé (That sounds a little odd) is on cruise for nine months at a stretch, so technically I have had a 6 months courtship but they say that counting things that way is illogical. But can you believe it that I have been the ‘bride to be’ for one and a half years now and will continue to be, perhaps till coming June.
My parents and my fiance’s parents are very confused on exactly when they want to get us married. He won’t come back before June 15 (Though, he can apply for an early vacation but I am sure he won’t. Do all guys become escapists nearing their wedding?) And according to his mom we have to get married before July or else wait till 2012 and I am sure my mom will have a semi-heart attack if the wedding is prolonged that far. She has been trying really hard to do all things possible to make me fit in and adjust to the new household after marriage (It’s just that I am not there as yet) like teach me to broom, to cook and also not get into an argument among many others lessons (there have been hordes of – your mother-in-law will throw you out of the house and after wedding that is your real house). And of course all my relatives are really thinking that there is something amiss, how a Gujju girl can have such a long courtship? Ya, so June it is, most probably. But it will rain cats and dogs then, my dad has already predicted that “It hasn’t rain enough this year so it will rain really hard next near). So we may have a simple wedding (nobody has defined simple as yet). Well, last year when my fiancé’s elder brother got married there were 1000 people attended his wedlock…Ooof! (I had always heard that South Indians lead simple, calculated, planned lives). And my dad has been sick and tired of all the tantrums that he faced in my fiyas (maternal aunts) weddings and he is also a bit of a socialist so he is totally for a court marriage. Mom is conservative so she wants the wedding with all the vidhis and etc. (And my mom-in-law is okay with anything by which her office colleagues will be pleased) and my fiancé wants to sway me away on his Royal Enfield bike after the bidaai (He is never around to discuss more). So we don’t know how and why but we do know that monsoon wedding is perhaps in my destiny. Quoting mom “Things will automatically fall in place don’t you worry.” Well I am sure all this ambiguity will lead us to somewhere at least.
Oh by the way. My mom-in-law has sent fiancé’s date of birth, exact birth time etc and my mom will get mine and his details matched by a Pandit to find a suitable day for the wedding in the month of June. But don’t you think we should actually take advice from the weather bureau?