A Wedding and Other Hair-Raising Events in God's Own Country

I'm sure you've seen the Samsung ad with it's large-hearted tagline "Everyone's Invited". That, in a gist, is a Kerala wedding - everyone's invited - and unlike in the ad, they'll all show up. The last time I attended a wedding in Kerala was 16 years ago when, if nothing else, age was on my side. 16 years later, on the wrong side of 30, the lethal combination of rain, heat, noise, and crowds to rival the best attended soccer matches prove a little too much for my feeble heart. It puts me in a perpetual state of near syncope for the entire duration of my stay.

There is one thing, however, to be said for weddings in the temple town of Guruvayoor (where my cousin took the plunge). Even if you're permanently lost, like I was, you'll get to attend SOME wedding - like I did - because there are so many happening on the day one of your own decides to seal his fate. I lost the crowd I was with (my mother's family that is roughly the size of two cricket teams with extras) which is very easy to do and ended up gazing at the bridegroom wondering if my handsome cousin's face could be so rearranged within 24 hours.

"Baaaangloooor allllaaayy ??" someone screeched while grabbing my hand and I spun around to face an all-32 grin that belonged to the owner of the eardrum-shattering voice. I laughed inspite of myself. In Kerala, everyone (specially people you meet for the first time in your life) will squeeze your hand, pat your cheek, and stroke your hair and if you're the touch-me-not sort, the experience can be quite....well, touching. Her smile was infectious and I happily let her take my hand and lead me back to where, she thought, I belonged - the mob that I'd been trying to lose ever since landing. On the way, she reeled off everything she knew about me (which was no surprise because by now I knew that people you've never seen before and probably will never see again know more about you than yourself) - from my vital statistics down to what I had had for breakfast that morning. Some of her facts were naturally completely divorced from reality, but who cares - I was having a ball!

The one thing that you absolutely do not want to be in a Kerala wedding is a single over-the-hill woman. You're a sitting duck (or a moving target - take your pick) for every whacko jacko and his mom, especially his mom, who has come to take a peek at you because her daughter's brother-in-law's aunt's husband's second cousin told her to.......but she's very suspicious that you're not married at such a ripe old age. She also thinks all Bangalore girls are "fast." She wants to know if you're: A. Mentally challenged. B. Physically challenged. C. Cannot have children. D. Recently ditched. E. All of the above. F. If others, please specify. You want to tell her where she should go with a one-way ticket that you'd be happy to buy for her, but she can't understand your language and you can understand hers perfectly.

Temples or temple weddings, however, are not the most divine experiences in God's Own Country - being a passenger in any mode of transport is. It's divine because you'll pray to every God you know as you shut your eyes tightly and nearly kill yourself holding your breath. Every male driver on the road (this includes all the males in my family too) is a maniac. The morning of the wedding, I opened the paper and caught the news that 5 employees of the Indian Oil Refinery were smashed to smithereens in their car that collided head on with a bus. There was a photo of the car - it looked like a dismantled jigsaw puzzle that you could pack into your overnight bag and carry effortlessly. With this vivid picture and all the gory details of how the occupants were scraped free fresh in my head, I board Cinimol (isn't that cute !) In Kerala, buses have names, not numbers. Cinimol is a benign looking bus......till it starts moving. On the back of the bus is emblazoned "CONCORD" in a fiery red which the fiend behind the wheel seriously believes. As he hurtles down the road at breakneck speed, he defies every law, every rule, every force of nature and gravity known to man. I pray incessantly and I thank God I'm in the bus and not out of it .....on the road.....in his way; if that happens, I'll only have enough time to hope that God doesn't run buses in Paradise.

When I alight, my internal organs are dancing to their own tunes as they try to find their spot to settle down. Cinimol races with Ranjinee's (not my punctuation or spelling) who's in turn racing with Highness (as opposed to ?) and they're all trying to catch up with Sleeba (I swear I'm not making this up). I marvel that there are no bodies piled up on the streets. I promise myself never to ever again curse Bangalore drivers who're such lambs in comparison.

"Road Clossed" (not my spelling) the sign says. It's a challenge too inviting to pass up for my auto driver. At first I think he doesn't know English (or he knows better English), so I ask him "closed alllaayyy??" He looks at me and laughs and says it's been closed since 1947 and he's been using it for roughly the same period. I want to scream, "but where is the road?" but I underestimate this champion driver. He's already delivered me to my destination in one piece - as usual, I wasn't looking. I feel like falling on my knees and thanking him.

When it's time to leave, I don't want to go. This is a pace of life that is forgotten in my world (if you forget the traffic part). People have time for you here. They're interested in what you say. They're simple, they're great hosts, and there are some parts of their human spirit that are still unspoiled by my world - just like their beautiful land. Most of all, they're open - what you see is what you get. I want to stay, but I can't.....of course, I'll always go back.....to my second home.