Clean Bowled!

This post is not meant to intentionally/unintentionally hurt anyone. No guarantee that it is fully/partly/mostly fact/fiction.

We at office, decided to have lunch outside and ventured to Mainland China. It turned out to be a great experience...! ;) One of the girls is getting married next week, so quite naturally, the conversations revolved around her marriage. 'Your saree is customized, right?' came the question..'yeah..' the bride nodded..'there isnt enough gold in the sarees in the shops!' I stole a glance at her. Gold?!! in sarees?! Somehow, that 'not enough' sounded a little odd!

'Tell us about the dishes you have decided on..' 'hmm..there are about 80 dishes...' I sat up straight. I looked around the table to see how everyone was taking it..Surely, that IS enormous..! To my dismay, there was no noticeable reaction from anyone...'What's wrong!?! had my gang been here we'd have gone oooohs and aaaahs listening to just the number!', I couldnt help wondering!

'Your jewellery ready?' 'Oh yes..! I've got a long necklace with diamond and ruby, a pair of earrings to go with that and of course, bangles..' The spoon slipped from my hand and my jaw dropped! 'You said rubies and diamonds?!' I wanted it to sound matter-of-fact. As matter-of-fact as it could get, that is. But, I clearly needed more practice. 'Yeah.. but that's for the reception. for the wedding, I've got emerald-diamond-gold studded set with two necklaces and a dozen bangles and of course, earrings and..' she continued the list but my mind was busy trying to imagine diamond, emerald and gold separately, and then all of those put together in some sort of a combination to look like a necklace and all the other things this girl was talking about. My brain has never before been put to such a test!! Imagining this was becoming harder than those 3D isometric drawings that I fought with while doing Engineering Graphics!

I was sure there were more to follow. 'Describe what happens in your marriage na..!' someone nearly pleaded...'There is one ritual wherein a pot of rice (uncooked!) is emptied over our heads...that is supposed to symbolize prosperity..' 'In our marriage, we are using pearls instead of rice..' (No point trying to hide my astonishment!) I could bear it no more..'What will you do with all those pearls later?!' Outright silly! I had actually wanted to ask something else, but the shock I was being subjected to, made thinking a pain! 'Actually, there's a dhobi who picks it up..' 'DHOBI..takes those pearls..?!!' I wanted to pinch myself hard..'Is this some sort of a dream?!!' I looked at the others and...SMILED...they all looked as astonished as myself..! 'Ok..if the slot isnt already filled, may I play the dhobi's role in your wedding?!' I offered..
By now, everyone else had been rudely jolted back to reality and went 'oohs and aahs'..!!

'What colour did you say your saree was?' I was determined to find out as much as I could..'well..it's partly sewn in gold..' she said. This was taking me to an altogether different plane. Probably, the application(s) of gold in the textile industry was a lot more than I expected it to be! 'Wont it be heavy?' 'Yeah..heavier with all those diamonds and emeralds and rubies..' 'But, one thing ya..gold is soooo costly! Even a little gold used in the sarees is about 50K' 'hmmm...' My voice was flat! I guess I got used to the sheer enormity of her description,that, all of a sudden, it seemed 'normal'!

Then followed an account of how an aunt of hers had bought a diamond necklace worth twelve lakh rupees just for the wedding! 'Does the aunt have an eligible bachelor as a son?' someone asked and we all guffawed!

Someone else mentioned dowry, and she said she wasnt sure. Her parents wont give a penny as dowry,she said, but they would credit a crore or two into her account! I felt the ground beneath giving way...Looking back, it wasnt the fact that the amount was in crores that shocked me, it was way she said it. I am only used to hearing ' a penny or two / a hundred or two / a thousand or two' in the decreasing order of frequency! Nothing prepared me for a 'crore or two'!

In a flash, it all became clear. I was surely sitting with someone with royal heritage or someone who is a direct descendant of a major business tycoon in India! I wanted to find out which! 'Are you from some royal family?' I blurted out! 'No..my dad runs a flourishing pharmaceutical business'...'Is that called Dr.Reddy's?' I thought I was asking too many questions..Thankfully, the whole gathering found it exxxtremely funny that I was so 'excited' listening to all this...'No..he doesnt own Reddy's but works in a similar unit..' she answered and I fell silent for a while...

All the way back, I was thinking about the description (only 10% of what ACTUALLY happens) she had given...I wondered if I had ever seen a wedding as grand as what she described, anytime in the past..Oh yes! it must have been the small video clipping that I saw on Doordarshan when a politician's adopted son was getting married..! I couldnt get the thought out of my head. If a wedding is THIS grand, how do they celebrate other things, like birthday parties, or diwali or even an engagement!

It was late in the evening when I figured out why the rest of the gathering was calm at the mention of '80 dishes'.. The reason was, there were 100 dishes during the engagement which they had all attended!