Chapter 5: Reactions, reactions everywhere. Not one to be absorbed.

Note: We love our parents and will be at our civilized best around people who matter to them. Hence, I thought this page would be an appropriate outlet for me and the likes of me, who are getting prominent brow lines, keeping all the grievances of matrimonial reactions bottled up inside.
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In all this inherent merriment and warmth and filial ties that reign our weddings, people don’t just stop at congratulating you on your decision to say yes to marriage. They actually take time out. To share their opinion, their excitement and give you feedback buttressed with the index finger wagging near your nose. Speculating aunties and the slightly sordid older cousins tend to bask in some sort of perverse pleasure, reminiscing over old, embarrassing stories which should have been discarded ages ago and not held so close to the heart.

1. The most (in)famous one, most likely to take place in a big room full of half-strangers:
“Really? *gasp* That little girl we knew is getting married? The same one who had peed on my lap at her rice ceremony? *laughs*”
(Me, aside: That’s right. Your seemed so hollow, I confused you with the pot I normally used.)

2. “Oh my! How grown up you are (look of genuine disbelief)! I have seen you as a baby girl!”
(Because it’s okay for you to age into a hag and be victim to arthritis, but for me to grow up to a regular 26 year old? My! That must REALLY be shocking!)

3. “You’re so tiny! Are you sure you’re old enough for marriage?!”
(No, my parents were so bored, they decided to execute child marriage so they could party in jail!)

4. “Gosh, how fragile you are! Don’t worry about being skinny, though. Once you’re married.. *Sheepish grin*.. That will be taken care of!”
(Really? How? Does biology prove that marriage will bloat me up? Or is your word holier than science? If sex (implied) made me fat, then isn’t it a damn shame that the lack of it didn’t make YOU at least lean?)

5. “Now that you’re getting married, in a couple of years we will be playing with your cute little babies!”
(Sure. Because the whole agenda of my life is to provide you with entertainment that will put me through shit, make me fat, give me sleepless nights and a life of parental imprisonment!)

6. “Lose the shorts. You’ll be a married woman soon!”
(My legs don’t scream out “C.E.L.L.U.L.I.T.E.” unlike yours. How about you lose all that bling? You’ll be low-cost sagging antique soon.)

7. “Have you started with your fortnightly facials, hair spa and other grooming sessions yet? You must! I know of this bridal package which…”
(Oh god, stop! I live with my fiancé, for the love of vanity! And even if I didn’t, the whole point of marrying someone you’ve known for years is that they talk to your blemished face and rough hair every day, without appearing even remotely concerned about either.)

8. “In all his pictures, your fiancé has a drink in his hand. Does he drink a lot? Why don’t you stop him?”
(Let us all take a minute to laugh at the innocent fancies of aunties who believe that the men of today are waiting to be told to stop, in order to really stop doing what they absolutely will.)

9. “You are so lucky. Your fiancé cooks and cleans!”
(Yes, because he wasn’t brought up to sit on his posterior like a princely Bengali Boy, who gets passed on as an impaired baby from doting mother to doting wife.)

10. The most offensive one:
“XYZ has the best insurance schemes. ‘X’ premium for ‘Y’ sum assured, blaahh. It’s about time you got that done. It even offers “spouse coverage”!
(This one, in particular, is downright unsettling. So you’re saying that all my twenty six years of toil which included heartbreaks, broken dreams, adolescence, laborious academics and thankless junior management jobs, never qualified me enough to insure my health/ life, as much it does now that I’m about to sign a few legal papers of lifelong bondage? There has got to be greater suspension of logic in this than in Chennai Express, the film.)