I must apologise for my long (and wholly warranted) absence.
Darahsal, it was my cousins wedding yesterday due to which I was very busy. Since another cousin of mine has asked me to record this event for posterity, I shall do the honours today.
The job of a historian is a very complex one, and that of a contemporar historian even more arduous. Keeping all this in mind, kindly excuse any factual errors. This is solely for Tinks. the rest can go faak themselves.
The first of the ceremonies (The Shagan) happened on the 7th of February 2004, at the Panchsheel Club, New Delhi. The food there was quite remarkable, and I can assure you that I have never had such good vegetarian food in my life (This has a lot to do with the fact that I've hardly ever had vegetarian food anywhere, preffering Taamsik non-veg food.). Since nothing ever happens in a shagan, I shall not continue to waste time, effoirt and online space by blathering on
On the 8th was the Ladies Sangeet. For all those who do not know what a ladies Sangeet in a Punjabi wedding is, its when a multitude of women (and in this case, a guy-moi) decide to sing a host of Punjabi Folk songs, mostly bitching about evil mother-in-laws, and relly senti ones about Vidaai, making up for a complete lack of singing talent with a great deal of gusto, accompanied with a dholki, and a chammach (spoon doesn't quite capture it!).
The problem here was that no one quite knew how to bajaao the dholki apart from Maaji, who is 80-odd and could not sit down for long. As a result, we had to settle for a rather indifferent performance.
According to everyone, I sung rather well, All the BJs (Buddhi Janaanis) and the not-so BJs were very impressed with my knowledge of Punju folk songs (all courtesy Surinder Kaur, and Ritika didi's wedding 8 years ago.) after which we had an antaakshari session, where I sang Shamshad Begum songs with my nasal pitch, making everyone put cotton inside ears. Well, in my defence, I enjoyed myself.
The Mehndi and the shaadi shall be dealt with oin the next post.
Manab
PS- Saada chidiyaan da chamba ve, baabal asaan ud jaana