We had the unfortunate experience of having being invited to a school friends wedding. She was the first to get married and this realisation threw me into a frenzy of what the girls had enduringly termed ‘husband finding’ the activity was neither healthy nor scientific. It in fact mainly consisted of finding a male and then ‘throwing our bones’ in the form of cat-calling and a gruesome display of flesh that perhaps need not be seen. The grooming process for an Indian wedding is not fun, it consists of numerous baths due to the humidity in Durban (all brown weddings are in Durban) deeming any activity used to incite hygiene being made redundant 10 minutes after stepping out of the shower by reducing said bather into a melting, sweaty mess. If your name is Mine it makes the situation that much worse when you have an over bearing mother lurking around your every move to ensure you are presentable and neat.
The days ‘festivities’ begin early and the unspoken tension dance between mother and I begins in the form of polite conversation where both of us try not to explode.
Mother: Have you decided what jewellery you’re going to wear
T: No, I don’t really like wearing any jewellery.
Mother: I know, but you have to wear jewellery because it goes with the sari.
T: Ok, then you tell me what to wear And I’ll put it on.
The first communication ended with both parties in tact and neither of us really wishing the other person in to non-existence. The rest of the day proceeded without any drama in particular until crunch time:, i.e. sari wrapping torture time.
Mother started following me around, in secret she thought (after my third and final bath of the afternoon) but my spidey senses were tingling and I smelt trouble in the air, it smelt suspiciously like my mothers perfume mixed with the faint aroma of a hidden smoker who tries to cover up her addiction with excessive bathing and Listerine. She made her official attack in the kitchen, where she revealed her location and her weapon of choice, foundation! She started her attack conservatively, inching nearer ‘offering’ to do my make-up for me as if it were an offer of reconciliation of sorts. The first move in the battle was epic, me, mid sip of my tea while gazing outside wondering why I had agreed to subject myself to this when I could be sitting at home in my pjs reading; as all Saturdays should be spent; mom made her attack and lunged towards me dabbing my face with foundation without warning. I remained calm and told her to stop. This calmness incited in my mother her true breeding of spoilt brat and before I knew what was happening the make-up container was hurled passed my head with great force landing very dramatically in the sink. Despite my near untimely death, me, not being quick to anger, simply looked at her in disgust, picked up the container and uttered: That was unnecessary. This was the worst possible reaction as dramatic people thrive on conflict, I saw a vein pop in her head and I think it was at this point that she realised I was not going to give her the fight she was looking for.
The rest of the becoming ‘presentable process was all very pg after that.
Arriving at J's house the pressures of marriage were quite evident with jash’s mom instructing us to find our own grooms at the wedding. Feeling quite submerged we hopped into J's car and had the best intentions. Though there was a moment of weakness before getting out the car at the wedding and if our new found ‘real talk’ had been discovered at that point we would have ended up throwing our presents in the doorway and making a run for it. But we were unfortunately still blatantly lying to each other out of a false sense of politeness and ended up going in to the wedding, wide fake smiles plastered firmly on our done up faces. We creeped in; uncertain of ourselves, hoping for a glimmer of familiarity as we tried finding places to be seated. We were pleasantly surprised by a former school mate who also looked like suicide thoughts were running through her head, she seemed to be in the final stages of her planning and if we had arrived 10minutes later I am certain that we would have been witness to the first ever case of death by sari strangling. Her gloomy demeanour made us feel eons better and that was the first genuine smile I think J and I shared that day. If not confirmed before we were now certain that we were in fact terrible human beings. Pleasantries were shared and we sat down expecting the worst, it was unfortunate that we sat next to a wonderful Indian couple that seemed intent on over hearing everything we had to say. Our inability to filter our conversation into age appropriate topics started right away as we gushed out nonsensical phrases about our lack of husbands and inability to catch one. The poor lady caught the gist of our conversation and decided we were still better conversationalists than her rather large husband placed neatly next to her. This began her very friendly and unsuccessful attempt to find common ground with a group of lunatics who seemed to have nothing better to do than hatch evil and ingenious plans of husband capture that ranged from completely altering our personalities to getting knocked up, and then of course ‘mistakenly’ falling down a very long flight of stairs, after the marriage of course. This still did not deter her from offering her son (I think he was an engineer) to J, I think her reasoning stemmed from the fair grand-kids she had obviously planned out in her head, fair trumps crazy every time!
The days ‘festivities’ begin early and the unspoken tension dance between mother and I begins in the form of polite conversation where both of us try not to explode.
Mother: Have you decided what jewellery you’re going to wear
T: No, I don’t really like wearing any jewellery.
Mother: I know, but you have to wear jewellery because it goes with the sari.
T: Ok, then you tell me what to wear And I’ll put it on.
The first communication ended with both parties in tact and neither of us really wishing the other person in to non-existence. The rest of the day proceeded without any drama in particular until crunch time:, i.e. sari wrapping torture time.
Mother started following me around, in secret she thought (after my third and final bath of the afternoon) but my spidey senses were tingling and I smelt trouble in the air, it smelt suspiciously like my mothers perfume mixed with the faint aroma of a hidden smoker who tries to cover up her addiction with excessive bathing and Listerine. She made her official attack in the kitchen, where she revealed her location and her weapon of choice, foundation! She started her attack conservatively, inching nearer ‘offering’ to do my make-up for me as if it were an offer of reconciliation of sorts. The first move in the battle was epic, me, mid sip of my tea while gazing outside wondering why I had agreed to subject myself to this when I could be sitting at home in my pjs reading; as all Saturdays should be spent; mom made her attack and lunged towards me dabbing my face with foundation without warning. I remained calm and told her to stop. This calmness incited in my mother her true breeding of spoilt brat and before I knew what was happening the make-up container was hurled passed my head with great force landing very dramatically in the sink. Despite my near untimely death, me, not being quick to anger, simply looked at her in disgust, picked up the container and uttered: That was unnecessary. This was the worst possible reaction as dramatic people thrive on conflict, I saw a vein pop in her head and I think it was at this point that she realised I was not going to give her the fight she was looking for.
The rest of the becoming ‘presentable process was all very pg after that.
Arriving at J's house the pressures of marriage were quite evident with jash’s mom instructing us to find our own grooms at the wedding. Feeling quite submerged we hopped into J's car and had the best intentions. Though there was a moment of weakness before getting out the car at the wedding and if our new found ‘real talk’ had been discovered at that point we would have ended up throwing our presents in the doorway and making a run for it. But we were unfortunately still blatantly lying to each other out of a false sense of politeness and ended up going in to the wedding, wide fake smiles plastered firmly on our done up faces. We creeped in; uncertain of ourselves, hoping for a glimmer of familiarity as we tried finding places to be seated. We were pleasantly surprised by a former school mate who also looked like suicide thoughts were running through her head, she seemed to be in the final stages of her planning and if we had arrived 10minutes later I am certain that we would have been witness to the first ever case of death by sari strangling. Her gloomy demeanour made us feel eons better and that was the first genuine smile I think J and I shared that day. If not confirmed before we were now certain that we were in fact terrible human beings. Pleasantries were shared and we sat down expecting the worst, it was unfortunate that we sat next to a wonderful Indian couple that seemed intent on over hearing everything we had to say. Our inability to filter our conversation into age appropriate topics started right away as we gushed out nonsensical phrases about our lack of husbands and inability to catch one. The poor lady caught the gist of our conversation and decided we were still better conversationalists than her rather large husband placed neatly next to her. This began her very friendly and unsuccessful attempt to find common ground with a group of lunatics who seemed to have nothing better to do than hatch evil and ingenious plans of husband capture that ranged from completely altering our personalities to getting knocked up, and then of course ‘mistakenly’ falling down a very long flight of stairs, after the marriage of course. This still did not deter her from offering her son (I think he was an engineer) to J, I think her reasoning stemmed from the fair grand-kids she had obviously planned out in her head, fair trumps crazy every time!