The photos are here, the angry relatives who were not invited have fumed themselves out of their displeasure and Rads’ mehendi has begun to fade. I can still not believe she is engaged. It comes as a surprise in little things. Like watching her talking over the phone with Vicky several times a day in the presence of family and realizing that her relationship is now, in a manner of speaking, legitimate. Which is strange for remaining 5, who are used to the “don’t tell mom” and the “if dad finds out someday” and the “keep it to yourself”. And her calling Vicky’s parents Mom and Dad.
I can clearly remember a fat girl in a uniform, standing under a tree, red with rage at having been kept waiting by the driver after school. Or the girl who threw a tantrum when her parents suggested she use her brother’s books from the previous year instead of buying new ones. It will take some getting used to this new Rads, who is a woman now.
I see her and I am astonished at how easily she has slipped into this new role. She talks about his habits now and quotes him in her conversations. She plans her wedding and discusses how she will build their home in Hyderabad once they are married.
Tomorrow is Rads’ first Karvachauth. She will pray with the married women of my house for her fiancé’s happiness and health.
She has left the 5 of us and has crossed gracefully over to the other side.
It will only be a matter of time before the others follow and this becomes easier to take in but until then and especially while she is here, I will have to consciously remember that my sister is a woman now.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
RADS ENGAGEMENT- 1
This blog fizzled out soon after I started writing it. More pressing issues diverted the parents’ attention from the task of getting their children married. But then things happened and so quickly that I am still sometimes caught off guard wondering if it is for real!
Rads got engaged. Engaged to be married. Whoa! Serious stuff! From the hazy past, here is my recollection of events-
Rads mentioned about this guy who works with her and next thing we know, Big P, Big mom and bua are headed to Gurgaon to meet Vicky’s family. They come back very happy, exact plan of action thereon not specified. Later, Vicky’s father comes to Dehradun to meet his younger son, who is an IMA cadet, and also to meet Rad’s parents on their home turf. That went very well, and both sides were still happy, exact plan of action thereon not specified. Still later, we learn that Rads and Vicky would come from Hyderabad in October for a few days, so something ought to be done to seal the deal, as it were- exact plan of action thereon STILL not specified. So for a couple of months all we knew was that Rads and Vicky were going to be engaged someday to be married even later. So we were all waiting for something concrete to happen.
Then it happened- all of it. Tumbling together down in a flood of events which are now a heap of distorted memories. I try to sort them out but it is all a jumbled, happy mess of a time. Rads reached Doon and Vicky reached Gurgaon- each with the other’s ring. After much debate and deliberation, October 12 was fixed as THE day. It had to be a roka ceremony only, at Big P’s place with about 15 guests from each side. It was an engagement ceremony at a wedding point near Big P’s house with about twice the number of guests originally decided upon.
Big P is Monica from Friends- an obsessive and fretful guy who has to do everything himself. It is a standard joke in the family, derived from a solid fact that Big P wakes up at 5 in the morning but has never reached work on time, since he must walk back and forth from one end of the house to the other about a hundred times picking up the paper, putting the clothes out to dry, collecting old newspapers, sunning the mattresses etc. So we were all quite clueless about what we were supposed to do. During family meetings, the conversation went as follows:
Somebody would keep reading off things that were to be done. For instance, “Milk badam for the guests as soon as they reach” or “Getting a fruit basket made for sagan” and so on and so forth. At the end of each sentence, Big P’s voice would come from an obscure corner of the room to say, “Uski chinta aap matt karna, wo main sambhal lunga.”
So by the end of it, we had to only prepare ourselves for the big day when we would be rushing around to complete the errands that poor Big P was, understandably unable to.
Sonu reached Doon on 3rd, Monu reached on 9th, Chachi’s birthday came and went on the 10th and all too soon, it was October 12.
Rads got engaged. Engaged to be married. Whoa! Serious stuff! From the hazy past, here is my recollection of events-
Rads mentioned about this guy who works with her and next thing we know, Big P, Big mom and bua are headed to Gurgaon to meet Vicky’s family. They come back very happy, exact plan of action thereon not specified. Later, Vicky’s father comes to Dehradun to meet his younger son, who is an IMA cadet, and also to meet Rad’s parents on their home turf. That went very well, and both sides were still happy, exact plan of action thereon not specified. Still later, we learn that Rads and Vicky would come from Hyderabad in October for a few days, so something ought to be done to seal the deal, as it were- exact plan of action thereon STILL not specified. So for a couple of months all we knew was that Rads and Vicky were going to be engaged someday to be married even later. So we were all waiting for something concrete to happen.
Then it happened- all of it. Tumbling together down in a flood of events which are now a heap of distorted memories. I try to sort them out but it is all a jumbled, happy mess of a time. Rads reached Doon and Vicky reached Gurgaon- each with the other’s ring. After much debate and deliberation, October 12 was fixed as THE day. It had to be a roka ceremony only, at Big P’s place with about 15 guests from each side. It was an engagement ceremony at a wedding point near Big P’s house with about twice the number of guests originally decided upon.
Big P is Monica from Friends- an obsessive and fretful guy who has to do everything himself. It is a standard joke in the family, derived from a solid fact that Big P wakes up at 5 in the morning but has never reached work on time, since he must walk back and forth from one end of the house to the other about a hundred times picking up the paper, putting the clothes out to dry, collecting old newspapers, sunning the mattresses etc. So we were all quite clueless about what we were supposed to do. During family meetings, the conversation went as follows:
Somebody would keep reading off things that were to be done. For instance, “Milk badam for the guests as soon as they reach” or “Getting a fruit basket made for sagan” and so on and so forth. At the end of each sentence, Big P’s voice would come from an obscure corner of the room to say, “Uski chinta aap matt karna, wo main sambhal lunga.”
So by the end of it, we had to only prepare ourselves for the big day when we would be rushing around to complete the errands that poor Big P was, understandably unable to.
Sonu reached Doon on 3rd, Monu reached on 9th, Chachi’s birthday came and went on the 10th and all too soon, it was October 12.
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