winter n wedding

It is that time of the year in Bangalore when wrapping a bedsheet around yourself is just not enough to beat the chill. Am wearing cloth-slippers at home. Something my granny finds amusing. But an absolute necessity. The floor feels ice-cool. Chill gets at you from just about anywhere – the window gaps, the half centimeter gap between the door and the doorstep, from the ventilation window in the bathroom…

Winter has been a whole lot of surprises, turbulences and health tornadoes so far. But now, am just waiting to get over and done with that big thing called marriage. They say marriage changes your life. They say it brings with it a package of happy and sad, good and bad, and just about everything that has to change your life. Have even attempted flipping through Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus…but never went past a few pages.

For now, all I am bothered about is, who have I missed inviting? Who to post invites to? Who to send by mail? How many calls to make? How to travel in the Bangalore chill? How many will turn up? Is the blouse for so-and-so wedding saree ready? How much does the blouse-maker, a rare species, charge for all the altering you’ve to go back to her for? How to balance the myriad ego-games that play out in front of you?

How to manage the hundreds walking into the marriage hall that day?

Given a choice, all I preferred is to elope and get married. Probably that would’ve saved a whole lot of trouble for my parents. Given a choice, two signatures on a government register, is all I want in the name of marriage. God is witness to it anyways, whether you circle the fire seven times or not, whether you wear vermillion above your brows or not. Given a choice, I wouldn’t want to wear a sign of matrimony hanging from my neck. Given a choice, I would prefer a stress-free wedding.

But no, the last thing I know will be that. There is so much role-play happening around that I am at times amused, at times laughing, at times crying at the way I get tensed about wedding decoration, about what the hell I will do after the marriage when this new status of unemployment finally hits me. Wife means this. Husband means that. In-laws mean this. Parents mean that.

It’s winter. All I want is, to snuggle in my blanket, free of the chill outside. An uncle said he was surprised I was going through all this. Frankly, I am surprised too, for the independent woman that I am. Choice, they say, is also a matter of chance.