Last Sunday I attended the Sangeet ceremony of my mother-in-law’s friend’s son! Does that make him my friend? Well NO but that’s how Indian families work! Everyone’s a ‘close’ relative.
Seated at our table was a boy of ten in a such a forlorn state that I feared he’d bring in the monsoon five months earlier! And then it happened…
The lightning bolt struck me!
The idea for my next blog –
‘How Indian functions are all about training kids to handle difficult situations and the parents who put you in those situations in the first place!’ 😛
Haven’t you found yourself at ceremonies of relatives you never knew existed!? The wedding of your mother’s second cousin’s wife’s brother maybe!?
No matter what age you are, parents’ always win this battle. There’s never a reason good enough for them to let you stay home! Either you’re too young to be left alone or you’re too old to be left alone but you got to give them some credit..I mean, they’ll drag you to such social gatherings and ensure they find you a companion your age.. their friends’ or cousins’ children who would have been your best friend in the previous birth and you’d be expected to sit through the entire function with them and catch up on what all happened since you last met!
So this forlorn kid was no exception to this exercise, only after a while I noticed he’d dumped his companion for a better one – FOOD!
If nothing, today’s kids at least have technology to keep them occupied! Back in the no-phone era, life was about making up silly games, running around like a wild bull let loose, doing things that earned you a monstrous stare from your mother, get clicked and patiently wait for the negatives to get developed to see how horrible you looked!
As a kid, my earliest memories of forceful attendance at family functions were of escaping from my grandmom’s field of vision and if she pulled me out from under a sofa or from behind a curtain I’d complain of a bad throat, bad tummy, bad whatever part of the body! Guess why!? The universal mandate applicable to an Iyer “orru paatu paadu kekalaam!” Translation- “Let us hear you sing a song!” 😛
This was the age where adult interference was limited to pulling your cheeks and making sure you were well fed!
As kids blossom into teens, the game of hide and seek gets redesigned into hide and peek 😛
Checking out – The one business that’s never exclusive to the Iyers! This activity is usually done in groups because the one you like is invariably your cousins’ choice too!
This is the phase where adults put you on the spot with career questions like Science for Doctor or Commerce for CA?”
With age comes several issues, especially for us girls! You’ve extremely difficult choices to make and problems to solve, especially if you’ve got to attend gatherings. If you’re a boy, in all probability you’re being dragged along because they needed a driver! 😛
So here’s a list:
1) What to wear even if you’re telling everyone listening “I don’t care how I look!”,
2) How to ignore nosy adults,
3) How to do justice to that buffet without feeling guilty about putting on weight or messing your lipstick or getting stuff stuck between your teeth only for some guy to point it out. That’s the part when you wish you were dead,
4) How to click selfies without people staring at you,
5) How to get friendly with that girl with a better phone than yours and get her to click you without making it obvious!
And then comes the most dangerous part where the whole society is concerned about your life and would love to dedicate their life to finding you a life partner! Best part is you can end up getting more attention than the bride and groom!
Well that evening also turned out to be no different! I was hiding near the Pani Puri stall hoping I’d not suddenly hear the anchor call out my name to get onto the stage to render a song! Also I exchanged numbers with my mother-in-law’s friend’s daughter because the few hours we’d spent together were FUN! Don’t be silly, it had nothing to do with the fact that she owned an iPhone and had clicked a couple of my pictures 😛
Hope you guys could relate to most of what I covered, well mostly because if you’re a kid born and brought up in India, at some point in life you’ve been a victim of this! 😀
Dear parents, don’t get mad at me for bringing you guys into the lime-light! We love you all for doing whatever you did because at least we’ll have interesting stories to pass on to the next generations!
Cheers to being Indian!
C.A.: Confused Aquarian 