Relationships are infinitely easy until you decide to get arried. When Neel and I decided this was it, little did I imagine what the one year — from meeting the parents to getting engaged to planning a wedding — would bring. It’s fun in retrospect, but a career bride has quite a cross to carry.
Meet the folks
Bonding with the siblings is easy. But meeting the parents caused a knot in my stomach. I mean, it’s so easy for him, right — my parents are chilled out. Turns out, all kids think their own sets of parents are ‘chilled’. After meeting his folks a couple of times casually, I get a phone-call from his mother inviting me out for dinner. “No, no, I mean tonight. Just you, me and Neel’s dad. We want to get to know you better.” If there’s one thing I learnt at that moment and from then on is you can never say no. And it wasn’t quick and painless — like the new Chinese restaurant in town. It was a three-hour fine dine with wine. “So, what do you cook?” I think carefully and answer. His mom giggles, “He he, don’t worry, I don’t cook either.” Great. His father asks me what author I like. “Hemingway,” I gulp, frantically scanning my mind for one that sounds intelligent enough. Turns out, it doesn’t matter. “I don’t know any of these fancy authors. I was just checking,” he smiles. I finally realise how well the evening is going when Neel’s father, in no rush to leave, asks for a post-dinner glass of cognac instead of just the cheque. They like me. That was my moment of epiphany, which I now look back and call the Cognac Moment.
Family, family, family
During the fast-forward phase, after the parents meet each other, an engagement date is fixed for two months later. I go over to his house for an extended family dinner where I’m unveiled to the chachas and chachis. Birthdays, anniversaries, parties or “just like that” — 95 per cent of my meals are now not at home. My parents understand, but my maid is starting to get a little mad at me. Shopping for the engagement is taxing. I leave my cushy Peddar Road home at 10 am in the height of summer to commute to a fancy shop all the way in Andheri, hoping I find the perfect outfit. Andheri becomes Juhu, Bandra, Lower Parel, Mahalakshmi and Kemps Corner — I make all the stops. One long day, a throbbing headache and not a single shopping bag. The sprees are continuous, incidentally, and planning the menu (which, by the way, is discussed over yet another meal), flowers and decorators all reaches a frenzy. Gym goes for a toss; work’s relegated to secondary status. At 7 am one morning, I get a phone-call from his dad asking me to join them for breakfast at a new hotel in Juhu. It’s a week day, but I have to go. Soon, I have no time to even think. Waking up is difficult because I’ve barely slept. I get angry phone-calls from my gym trainer every morning — “Where are you,” he barks. “Anushka, do you want to be a fat bride?” And that’s when it hit me. Becoming a full-time career bride is the only way I can juggle all the balls — socialise with his family, meet the various friends, plan the perfect wedding, get in shape, spend time with my family and also just be. I put in my papers at work. “Don’t worry,” I croon at my trainer, “Once I quit, my afternoons are all yours.”
Ring around the lot
Neel and I fight over the engagement ring until we find something we both like. Two days before the engagement, my blouse is a little loose and so is his ring. After touching the feet of a 100 hazy people, someone does an aarti and anoints me with a huge red tilak. Someone else dabs a black spot on my face for fear of nazar. When it’s over, I realise I’ve made a huge windfall. The next day, I go and splurge on the sari I’ve been eyeing. Good buy! Except when I unwrap the six gift baskets of clothes, perfumes, jewellery and chocolates from Neel’s family, I see a sari six times more gorgeous. The next one week is spent finding various closets to fit all my new stuff. I’ve also been sweetly instructed to call his parents mom and dad. I’m overwhelmed, and it’s only just begun. Soon enough, I’m done with work, and I have a full six months to be a wedding planner-cum-blushing bride. I needed it, and I appreciated the value of time only later. God is in the details — and these details need gestation time. How else would we have ideated upon and executed customised diya-and-thali shaped mithai to distribute to people after the pre-wedding puja?
Down to D-day
Neel’s parents and I want a fun destination wedding. My parents and Neel want an elaborate affair in the city. We reach a compromise by picking on the most exotic, non-conventional locations available in the city. Now begin the real plans — and multiple areas of time-consuming contention. How many functions to have; what venues and decorators to choose; invitation cards, flowers, lights and music; which hair and make-up artists to block (the one booked for the wedding cancelled just three weeks before the day — I had a panic attack, but s**t happens). The six months of being a full-time bride are well-utilised. Except, on hindsight, I wonder if I’d kept working perhaps no-one would’ve expected so much of me. I could have skived off so many dinner parties, sundry family friends’ weddings and food tasting sessions. And I also could have pretended to be too tired to understand the silliest question of all, “Eh, how does it feel?” This was also the period where I woke up every morning to my parents arguing over the guest-list, the amount of money the decorator was charging, what jewellery to buy for me and the quantity of alcohol to serve at the cocktail party.
Some good times ahead
In-between were squeezed in ‘trousseau shopping’ trips to Dubai and Delhi. By then, we knew how many parties would precede the wedding — I needed two ghagras, three saris, one kurta and a gown. Plus, there was the matter of contingency that I was warned to bear in mind by one of Neel’s erudite aunts. “You have to be perfect everyday,” she whispered, “so you better have extra outfits; you never know what you’ll need when and who’ll be seeing you.” The three months before the wedding was a blur of constant exhaustion interspersed by regular ‘bridal massages and facials’. Wake, dress, lunch, high tea, shower, dress again, dinner, wake, puja… Excitement was high, but I’d already started looking forward to it all ending. The honeymoon sounded very enticing — for reasons other than the obvious, of course. Anyway, I now began to feel I should not have compromised on my ideals — I always wanted a small and simple affair. But, when in Mumbai! The ‘small’ affair turned out lavish anyway. A guest-list of a whopping 1,500 people was drawn up for the wedding. “Are you kidding?” Neel and I asked our parents. But, rest assured, all of the invitees turned up — a bunch of them with two kids and two ayahs in tow. But you can never stop smiling.
It’s my party
The morning of the wedding dawned bright and early. My dad wakes me up and asks, “So, are you sure? It’s still not too late.” How silly, I brush him off. But I sneak my cell-phone into the bathroom and make a quick nervous call to Neel anyway. “Hey, listen, you’re sure, right? You can hack this?” He laughs and hangs up on me. Baraat, pandit, pheras, fire, food, smiling and feet touching. The day ended as soon as it had arrived. I was now married, on my way to his house for a small home-coming puja, arguing with him about my new last name — to hyphen or not to hyphen. A year of my life — when put in perspective — was now concluded.