Porn's Wedding - First and Fabulous
Just when we all thought that the wing had broken up into a thousand pieces, in a BIG BANG, each proceeding in a different direction, came along an event that served to remind us, that small crunches do happen now and then to bring us back together, if only momentarily, in this uncontrollable time warp.
The first big thing in a group of girls like ours was bound to be a wedding, and a love marriage that actually materialized after considerable hullabaloo and tear-shedding by our leaky-eyed wingie, is no small matter. So when things finally started moving after we came back from BITS, the excitement couldn't be mitigated even in the farthest corner of the country.
I now consider it very fortunate that Puppy and I were forced to spend a month at Coimbatore, for some silly training that CTS wanted to impart, and above all, at the epicenter of all wedding preparations – Porna’s house. That the training was useless and we totally showed it our middle finger, everyone knows. The guys who did training with us were so totally shocked at our guts to skip tests altogether and not attend classes for days in a row. But little did they know that the motivation to gus the training went beyond simple laziness and disinterest!
The first day of our training was the day on which the formal ‘ponnu paakardhu’ happened. Thanks to our sincere attitude about having become semi-corporate (we had become corporate and in the process, semi), Puppy and I missed it. Of course, we all know the rave comments Porna’s now-in-laws gave her singing and behaviour that time – passed with top marks, to quote one of anand’s relatives. And guess you’ve also seen the clothes and jewels they’ve lavished on her. (Little do they know that she’s zilch value addition to the family!)
Then on started a gala spree of bitching about PSG and a binge of shopping. Diamonds, (yes! DIAMONDS, real ones!) silk, gold, inivitations, relatives , you name it, they were all there at the porna-party! Puppy and I even played third-party messenger between Porna and Anand, ordering bouquets with weird anonymous messages from him – the consequences of which were hilarious! We convinced Porna that the bouquets had come from someone who didn’t want her to marry Anand and kept aunty and uncle scratching their heads for FIVE FULL days, until Anand himself let the cat out of the bag.
And the days when some of you guys (Mena, Abi, Gee, Anta on her holidays) landed up in Coimbatore were so much fun, apart from the fact that those were the momentous days that we picked up most of Porna’s sarees and her wedding invitation. Special mention must be made of our physical-drill sessions – we religiously walked into and out of every saree store in Coimbatore, picking and discarding every saree displayed, until most of the store owners recognized us by face, downed shutters when we were still a mile away, and spread word in their store-owner-circle that a third-generation niece of Jayalalitha seemed to be getting married. In fact, the shopping overflowed to Chennai later, and some of us could indulge in some post-climactic shopping with nostalgia too.
Our training got over quickly, seemingly with the blink of an eye, and puppy and I left Porna to learn the intricacies of cooking and the methods of measuring out salt and tamarind, the ways of the orthodox world, mending, and to indulge in other ‘wifely’ activities, while we joined CTS as a regular employee. And with the blink of another eye, dawned the week of the wedding. After a tremendous fight (under threat of losing not just our salary, but also our jobs), Puppy and I managed to take two days off for the wedding. We could hardly believe how time had flown past, as we scrambled out of the CTS facility on 29th and hurried to the railway station. Before we knew it, we were being whisked away to the wedding hall in a car, one of the many grand arrangements that Porna’s dad had made for the wedding.
It was truly one of the happiest moments of our lives when we saw Porna at the hall, all radiant and happy and finally at the threshold of THE life she had been dreaming about for three (read, ten :P) years! Her beauty regimens had worked well and she was a very pretty bride, to say the least. The usual porna-tantrums happened too – vomiting at the drop of a hat or an idly, making a huge ruckus about this bangle or that chain…am sure you are picturing that and smiling! Trust me, it was exactly as you imagine it now. In fact, she embarrassed puppy and me by making us walk with her (in the spotlight) with her everywhere the first day, but we had some fun with the attention too. And her mid-night escapade to the terrace, which we alone were told about and which everyone found out not much later, was outrageous!
The wedding was a very charming mix of iyer and madhwa tradition and we had a good time running around doing this little thing and observing that little thing. In fact, the schedule vaguely resembled Oasis in the way the events were packed into two days. And to have ten people from Beau Monde turn up at a wedding is no joke, and Porna is a lucky bitch (any guesses on how many people would turn up at a wedding that happens, say, 2 years from now?)
A very cute oonjal (which Porna, after a lot of fight and effort, made sure happened), a mini-janavasam (she had made this huge show about how embarrassing janavasam cars are and that she wouldn’t sit in one, and that day when she was called, promptly sat in the car grinning)… Bang! Before we could have the whole thing sink into our thick skulls, Porna was married with dum-dum and pee-pee and akshadhai… can’t recall anymore than a flash with images of everybody and everything superposed in it (wiping away a silent tear… sniff!). Puppy and I share a big regret – that we weren’t able to spend time at the reception. It was, as expected, the most glamourous, the most hyped up (atleast for that saree) and the most photographed event, and added to that, delectable dishes spread over the entire lawn waiting to be eaten hot off the tava…
Guess everybody by now knows Anand, if not on a face-to-face basis, atleast from hearsay – he’s a perfect gentleman (Anand, if you do read this, let me tell you – Porna paid me 100 USD from YOUR pocket to write this :D)
Such is life!
The first big thing in a group of girls like ours was bound to be a wedding, and a love marriage that actually materialized after considerable hullabaloo and tear-shedding by our leaky-eyed wingie, is no small matter. So when things finally started moving after we came back from BITS, the excitement couldn't be mitigated even in the farthest corner of the country.
I now consider it very fortunate that Puppy and I were forced to spend a month at Coimbatore, for some silly training that CTS wanted to impart, and above all, at the epicenter of all wedding preparations – Porna’s house. That the training was useless and we totally showed it our middle finger, everyone knows. The guys who did training with us were so totally shocked at our guts to skip tests altogether and not attend classes for days in a row. But little did they know that the motivation to gus the training went beyond simple laziness and disinterest!
The first day of our training was the day on which the formal ‘ponnu paakardhu’ happened. Thanks to our sincere attitude about having become semi-corporate (we had become corporate and in the process, semi), Puppy and I missed it. Of course, we all know the rave comments Porna’s now-in-laws gave her singing and behaviour that time – passed with top marks, to quote one of anand’s relatives. And guess you’ve also seen the clothes and jewels they’ve lavished on her. (Little do they know that she’s zilch value addition to the family!)
Then on started a gala spree of bitching about PSG and a binge of shopping. Diamonds, (yes! DIAMONDS, real ones!) silk, gold, inivitations, relatives , you name it, they were all there at the porna-party! Puppy and I even played third-party messenger between Porna and Anand, ordering bouquets with weird anonymous messages from him – the consequences of which were hilarious! We convinced Porna that the bouquets had come from someone who didn’t want her to marry Anand and kept aunty and uncle scratching their heads for FIVE FULL days, until Anand himself let the cat out of the bag.
And the days when some of you guys (Mena, Abi, Gee, Anta on her holidays) landed up in Coimbatore were so much fun, apart from the fact that those were the momentous days that we picked up most of Porna’s sarees and her wedding invitation. Special mention must be made of our physical-drill sessions – we religiously walked into and out of every saree store in Coimbatore, picking and discarding every saree displayed, until most of the store owners recognized us by face, downed shutters when we were still a mile away, and spread word in their store-owner-circle that a third-generation niece of Jayalalitha seemed to be getting married. In fact, the shopping overflowed to Chennai later, and some of us could indulge in some post-climactic shopping with nostalgia too.
Our training got over quickly, seemingly with the blink of an eye, and puppy and I left Porna to learn the intricacies of cooking and the methods of measuring out salt and tamarind, the ways of the orthodox world, mending, and to indulge in other ‘wifely’ activities, while we joined CTS as a regular employee. And with the blink of another eye, dawned the week of the wedding. After a tremendous fight (under threat of losing not just our salary, but also our jobs), Puppy and I managed to take two days off for the wedding. We could hardly believe how time had flown past, as we scrambled out of the CTS facility on 29th and hurried to the railway station. Before we knew it, we were being whisked away to the wedding hall in a car, one of the many grand arrangements that Porna’s dad had made for the wedding.
It was truly one of the happiest moments of our lives when we saw Porna at the hall, all radiant and happy and finally at the threshold of THE life she had been dreaming about for three (read, ten :P) years! Her beauty regimens had worked well and she was a very pretty bride, to say the least. The usual porna-tantrums happened too – vomiting at the drop of a hat or an idly, making a huge ruckus about this bangle or that chain…am sure you are picturing that and smiling! Trust me, it was exactly as you imagine it now. In fact, she embarrassed puppy and me by making us walk with her (in the spotlight) with her everywhere the first day, but we had some fun with the attention too. And her mid-night escapade to the terrace, which we alone were told about and which everyone found out not much later, was outrageous!
The wedding was a very charming mix of iyer and madhwa tradition and we had a good time running around doing this little thing and observing that little thing. In fact, the schedule vaguely resembled Oasis in the way the events were packed into two days. And to have ten people from Beau Monde turn up at a wedding is no joke, and Porna is a lucky bitch (any guesses on how many people would turn up at a wedding that happens, say, 2 years from now?)
A very cute oonjal (which Porna, after a lot of fight and effort, made sure happened), a mini-janavasam (she had made this huge show about how embarrassing janavasam cars are and that she wouldn’t sit in one, and that day when she was called, promptly sat in the car grinning)… Bang! Before we could have the whole thing sink into our thick skulls, Porna was married with dum-dum and pee-pee and akshadhai… can’t recall anymore than a flash with images of everybody and everything superposed in it (wiping away a silent tear… sniff!). Puppy and I share a big regret – that we weren’t able to spend time at the reception. It was, as expected, the most glamourous, the most hyped up (atleast for that saree) and the most photographed event, and added to that, delectable dishes spread over the entire lawn waiting to be eaten hot off the tava…
Guess everybody by now knows Anand, if not on a face-to-face basis, atleast from hearsay – he’s a perfect gentleman (Anand, if you do read this, let me tell you – Porna paid me 100 USD from YOUR pocket to write this :D)
Such is life!
posted by Sukanya Vijayakumar at 5:07 AM
4 comments
