One month to go.

Seeing as how the Google spider is my only reader at this point, I'd like to talk about some of my thoughts.

I’m getting married. In less than a month. And it’s started to dawn upon me that a marriage isn’t between two people; it’s between two families – at least in India. Every occasion is marked with an exchange of gifts. Isn’t that great! Except that it’s a war of one-upmanship between the two families.

Not to mention the barrage of rib-poking and rhetoric questions. Every action, happy or dull, is an invitation to an uncomfortable question followed by constant stares. Every reaction is suddenly booby trapped with repercussions – repercussions that you didn’t think were possible hardly weeks ago.
Heck, even non-action is subject to sardonicism, so it’s not uncommon to want to implode.

Insatiable relatives aside, a wedding (specially a big fat Indian one) is a very taxing event on the primary “stakeholders”. 

The preparation that needs to be started at the earliest is that of the wedding invitees list. This most dreadfully challenging task took dad and me about one and a half months to build a list of  500 names. We got a suggestion early on to create an excel sheet with columns like Name, Address, Phone Number, Category (Friends/relatives/office), Importance (!), #of accompanying guests, Arrival Date Time (To arrange pick-up).

The second most important (but my most dreaded) task is shopping. *shudder*. It’s understandable that most women want to make a carnival out of it. For Swati, it started three or four months ago and included 10-12 day long trips to Mumbai and Jaipur - for the most expensive purchases like. And then there were the non-stop visits to shopping areas like Commercial Street and various tailors - several of which I was am still being forced to go. It’s scary how everyone is saying, “this is just practice”. I’m so scared I just pee’d a little.

There were also similar shopping trips for me! Not that great many times, but far too many times for my comfort. Why do tailors need one trial, while mothers/sisters/girlfriends need you to give at least two to three!?
BTW, here's a neat business tip - when you say you'll have your product ready for pick-up by some date, have it ready! I can't imagine multiple trips to over-crowded shopping markets carving a favorable brand image. 

Tasks remaining:

– talk to choreographer about my dance with Swati (Yes, I know. And I do not want flak on this. You can keep your taunts to yourself thankyouverymuch.)

– talk to club representative if we can access to the PA speakers for some ambiance music. It’s uncomfortable enough to be around SO MANY people all at once. I think we deserve some music running in the background at all times.

– Start distributing my personalized wedding invitations. (long story, maybe another post).