The 30 day countdown: Assembly Line Woes

I have been away.
(If I wanted to give more explanations, I would have married)


When I started writing about Monu's wedding, I had assumed that my job would be solely to sit in the middle of the storm with my laptop before me and write smart-ass posts about the whole ordeal. Boy (girl, man, woman and child), was I wrong!

These past few days I have been a driver, a wedding-card scanner, a shopping-bags carrier and a wedding-card-folding person (not sure what occupation covers the last). Clearly, this is a bite-size I can barely stuff in my mouth, let alone chew. Today, however was a pleasant change.

Today was fun! We organized a one-hour session today at 4 p.m. just after the ladies of the house have risen from their respective siestas and just before they have their customary evening चाय. By the ladies, I mean of course बुआ, बड़ी मम्मी (Rads' mother) and अपनी चाची.

For two days, I was folding the wedding cards all by myself. Today I wondered why I insist on being such a baboon all the time. I mean here are three perfectly healthy women in my house who love gossip as much as your next three Punjabis and who need a solid reason to convince themselves to step out of home just like your next three Punjabi housewives. So I give them this beautiful little opportunity to gossip during an entirely-justified, nay NECESSARY meeting at our house- folding the wedding cards.

The women arrived promptly and I arranged our seating to fashion an amateur assembly line. I fold the outer card and बुआ folds the inner leaf detailing the wedding function, time and venue. Then बड़ी मम्मी takes the outer cover and places the leaf in it and passes it to चाची who slots the thing in its envelope. By changing the seating a few times (I must add here I was working with a very uncooperative bunch who looked mutinous especially when in switching places, बुआ forgot to carry her cup of चाय and took a sip of चाची की चीनी वाली चाय), I was able to reduce the time taken to fold-slot-and-envelope each card and thereby extract maximum efficiency from the workers.

I was feeling very pleased with myself for having found the perfect way to lessen my burdens and to treat self to a therapeutic session of general bitching. However, I overlooked one detail: While talking animatedly, as Punjabis are wont to do, there is a need for us to constantly fling our arms about wildly to make a point. This of course, creates a hindrance in the work we are supposed to be doing.

So I came up with another ingenious plan: the camera! See, over the years I have noticed that if there are a community of women who are most insecure and camera-shy, it is Pubjabi women. Maybe it is years of being told that they ain't pretty unless they have milky white skins and size four (we like zero but we set realistic impossible-goals) but Punjabi women become berserkly conscious before the camera. My mom, for example claims that there is conspiracy going on somewhere because the only time the video-crew turn the camera towards her during weddings is when she is eating her food.

So I exploit their insecurities as all beauty creams do and station my sister with a camera in her hand over the now-conscious group and they immediately cease their animated hand-gesturing to finish almost half of the wedding invitations.

Peace at the assembly line at last. Here are a few pictures of the moments of mutiny:







The last is a picture of my efficient rule.