Marriages
Marriages in Vellore are not really made in heaven. They are
arranged by a consortium composed of relatives, brokers, marriage websites,
numerologists and astrologers. It is difficult to get everyone to see eye to
eye.
Many difficulties can be overcome by switching from astrology
to numerology, changing the spelling of the names or adding an extra letter or two. If all else
fails, the parents can always declare that they are atheists. This is accepted
in this part of the world. There is even a political party with atheist
ideology.
Once the marriage is fixed, the “friends” of the bridegroom
have a field day. An entertainer decided to make huge plastic posters cheaply. Friends
arranged for these and plastered them
from the time the wedding was fixed (engagement) till the actual date.
There were fake pre wedding shoots. The couple were posed
against the sea, Mount Fuji, Cherry blossoms, temples and Porsche cars. The
poses were sexy and suggestive. Sometimes he was actually carrying her.
There were 7-people at the border of the poster, the “friends”.
The labelled themselves with interesting handle “black panthers, Bad Boys” etc.
Many of them had partially shaven heads, purple hair , aviators and were posing
provocatively with cell phones.
“How do parents allow all this?” I asked.
“Oh “ said my patient, “only the young men are real. The girls
are not. They have photoshopped themselves with starlets”. Come to think of it,
looking closely, I found one young man was posing with Simran.
After the wedding the real pictures went up on posters. The
girl and the boy were standing stiffly a few inches apart with garlands. Her sari
was not provocative at all. She was not leaping and gyrating. She was
positively obese. If he tried twirling her around or picking her up, he would either
drop her or slip a disc.
I guess it is all wishful thinking!
