The Big Fat Indian Wedding Threatens To Slim Down

Weddings to turn into frugal affairs. Restrictions on number of dishes served, limiting guest list among Proposals.

24 September 2022

Today is a momentous day.  Tee has finally found THE ONE.  Phew! I was so sick and tired of her string of loser boyfriends.  No taste, no class and the worst part, they didn’t even read my blog. Poor sods they didn’t know what they were missing.  I still haven’t met her chosen one but I like him already!  He has read my book “An Idiot’s guide to Sarcasm” and even gifted it to all his ex girlfriends – how sweet naa! 

I am so thrilled that my Tee has finally managed to get hitched.  I had to pinch myself several times, just to make sure it wasn’t one of my silly dreams.   Better fix the date and get her married off quickly, before she changes her mind.  God knows how badly I need her room for my Pranayam-in-a-hammock sessions.   It’s a lot fun, you just have to lie in hammock and quiver your stomach violently.  Ten years back, in 2011, my Yoga sir used to have a hard time teaching me complex postures that entailed resting my right ankle gently under my left ear.  A fellow blogger and well wisher, as he fervently claims, then introduced me to a Jana Yoga version that Baba Ramdev had just introduced at an election rally, and I have not looked back since.   

2011 was indeed a dark year not just for me but the entire nation.  The National Advisory Committee made a proposal to the food and consumer affairs ministry that weddings be made frugal affairs, by limiting the number of guests and dishes served.  The suggestion that mehndis, sangeet, cocktail parties and receptions be crunched into one was met with a national uproar.  The designer fraternity wrote an emotional appeal to the textile ministry pleading that their livelihood will be at stake.  Where and when will the well-heeled wear our stone-studded, multi coloured, super expensive creations! Karan Johar and Sooraj Barjatiya went into a month long mourning, vowing to make only gangster movies from now on.   Socialites shed copious tears – All the friends I carefully accumulated over years, what will I do with them?  A wedding is futile, if we don’t get to show off.  What is the point of evading taxes if we can’t stun everyone with Lovely’s lavish wedding bash!  What is the reason of our existence?  All my solitaires, I can’t possibly wear them all on just one measly day.  India is no longer shining now!  Dahling let’s shift to Qatar.

JJ Vallaya and a few of his Page 3 friends even went on a hunger strike (Anna Hazare style) to protest against this draconian law.  After fasting for three full days they managed to shed so much weight that they all flew off to Cyprus to celebrate. In the meantime the government accepted all the proposals and Band, Bajaa and Baarat were never the same again. 

Sigh...How times have changed.  Behen Mayawati is our dashing young Prime Minister now.  Burqas are a rage except in France and Belgium.  Pakistan’s President has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for donating all its nukes to Afganistan.  It is rumoured that Kate Middleton has eloped with a sheikh.  Never say die, Queen Elizabeth has refused to comment and forever in waiting King, Prince William has gone into hiding in Aspen with his latest squeeze to grieve. The strange ways of these royals!  

It’s now our turn, to organize a no frills wedding for our dear Tee.   There’s so much I have to do.  According to the revised laws I can’t invite more than 200 guests.  I better start with un-friending the less desirables from my FB list.  The husband can call his old boys club sans their wives – I don’t like them anyway.  For our relatives, we can webcast the wedding and they can send her gifts online.  And of course I will give a minute to minute detail on my blog.  For the buffet we can have two options Eat or Drink – as such not many do both nowadays.  

All this thinking is giving me anxiety pangs; I better do some deep breathing to calm myself down.  What if I end up making more enemies like Amitabh Bachhan did after his son’s exclusive wedding.  To keep the dish count within the law - what if I combine a few courses into one and come up with a one of a kind dish.  Soup in salad garnished with slivers of chicken tikka anyone? Or how about roghanjosh spiked with rasmalai.  They all go down our gullet and mix up anyway, so why not make it simpler for our esteemed guests. 

All this brainstorming and coming up with such unique ideas is stressing me too much.  At this age I need to take things easy.  Wait, I have come up with another extraordinary plan that will put an end to all this unnecessary trauma.  Why have a wedding at all? No wedding ceremony, no having to bother about offending friends, no more deliberating on how little to serve the guests.  I think we’ll ask Tee to elope and we will fund her honeymoon to the newest hotspot on the block.  It’s got a lot of adventure sports like duck the sniper, kill one get one free, have Pizza with Gaddafi..... Yes, we’ll fund her trip to Libya.  What a fabulous way to start her married life.