Wilted wishes!!

When I was a kid, I remember desperately wanting to attend weddings. I never quite got the chance to, till I was in 8th grade. Surprising, isn't it? Well, I was one of those NRI kids who came to India every once in two years for two months. Much as I would've loved to attend any of my relatives weddings, I could not possibly insist that they wait till I get to India the next time. What I was left with, was loads of wedding photo albums and cassettes to pour over during my summer hols. And I'd be lying if I said that I did not feel a teeny-weeny bit sad that I could never wear one of those pretty pink/white lacy dresses my cousins wore with cute bouquets in their hands, happily smiling, standing beside the married couple while the photographer clicked away. *sigh*.

Anyway, now that I've grown up(or so I think!!), I still love weddings, but not of relatives. Its nothing to do with them. They are all adorable people and they mean the best for everyone. But the problem lies in me being a 22 year old Keralite girl who has just finished her studies. You see, that kind of a person is the exact prey for all these auntyji types in the wedding to explore their matchmaking skills with the girl in question and the auntyji's neighbor's mother-in-law's brother's daughter's son... You get the drift, right? Its annoying, to the say the least and it also puts unwanted ideas into ur folks minds. Dangerous, I tell you. Very dangerous.

You see, once they do happen to get such ideas in their head, (presuming it wasn't already there in the first place) they'd want to to go ahead, find the 'perfect' match for their daughter and get it finished off as soon as possible. Looking at it from their point of view, I guess its entirely right. But still!!!!!!

Our retorts which may go like "I'm not ready yet!" would mostly earn a reply like, "Your 22. Whaddaya mean ur not ready yet?!? Girls these days!! Your g'mom got married when she was 15 and had her first kid when she was 16. In our culture, girls have to get married before they reach a certain age or they are never going to find a good match and blah blah blah....". If you are a Keralite girl, I'm sure you know the rest.

To lower the percentage of such interactions, I'd say its best to stay away from our khaandan weddings. But, of course, that cannot be helped either. If you do manage to say something like,
"Do we HAVE to go for the wedding? Its a lot of people. I'm sure they won't notice we're not around", and voila, we're definitely in for another round of wisdom-sharing which might go something like this. "Not go for the wedding? Are you out of your mind? and blah blah blah..."

Here we go again!! :|

Arrrrrggghh....help me get outta here...!

If you've been to Kerala lately, you'd definitely notice that the people out here are in the "Let’s see whose house is the brightest!" phase. The color of their houses range from bright yellow with maroon roofs to violet with brown roofs to pink with magenta roofs to God knows what else! Why, you'd never guess the color of the building opposite to where I live. It’s a huge building which has around 40 flats and the entire thing is painted such a bright shade of orange with a few shades of yellow near the windows. No, I'm not kidding! I have to see this huge ghastly thing every time I go into the balcony of my house. I'm not making this stuff up! For solid evidence to support my claims, check out the snaps. And I'd have been really glad, had it stopped with only buildings. I mean, buildings are fine, comforting also in a weird sorta way. When your traveling in one of those state transport 'fast passenger' buses (I dunno why they call them fast passenger, anyway. Its the bus which is supposed to be fast not the passenger!!) and everything moves so fast, you just end up seeing a huge blur of colors, that it looks almost like a horizontal rainbow of sorts. But the thing about this place is the colors people end up choosing for their clothes. Oh my God, I don't even want to get started on that one. I mean, I love salwar kurtas. I think its an elegant outfit. But can u even start to comprehend wearing a violet kurta with a bright yellow salwar and a dupatta which has huge yellow flowers with a violet background. It is so wrong!! And that just happens to be the beginning. Everything is so freakin bright around here that I feel as though I stepped onto the sets of some kinda weird anime movie or something... May the Lord help these color freaks!