It is the wedding season....full throttle....festivities, shopping, dance practice, tickets... the whole nine yards....its crazy... the amount of preparation that goes into this one event....especially a marwari wedding....to a guest all grooms n brides look alike....all sangeet sound the same....the stage the lights the venue feel similar...the food somewhat registers....the gift received is remembered....but everything else is a blur.....then why bother inviting the whole world....its a debatable question....to me everything about a marwari wedding seemed like a monstrosity....wastage of giant proportions....the embarrassing extravagance....
but recently i went to a cousins wedding....technically my cousins son but close to my age so my cousin....and loved every minute of it....n i realised that i can somehow make my peace with the marwari-ness.....this was the first wedding in our family after mine....n i understood the difference of attending a wedding as a married daughter....that i was now representing a different family... that i was a guest and not a host....that i can sit back n enjoy everything n not bother about it being politically correct....I got to spend time with the entire extended clan....i was soaking in every bit of the craziness that this family is...Arav had 6 kids of his own age for company....n i never had to worry about keeping him entertained...he was there with them running around jumping and yelling and getting pampered being the youngest one.....just as i was once upon a time....still am with my group of favorite cousins....who still look out for me the same way they did 10 years back....the cousin brothers i liked went ahead and got married to some amazing women....they became sisters and friends rather than sister in laws....together they produced some fantastic kids.....n the bunch is still growing...
each person have their own quirks....everyone teases everyone.... makes fun of each other...bitches behind their backs....gets on each others nerves...but has a gala time together....while growing up i was hardly aware that i don't refer to my cousins as my cousins i call them bhai or didi... so if anyone asked i replied i have 7 brothers n 7 sisters....it was out of habit....wen i got married n started talking about my bhabhi this n my bhabhi that people would get confused as i only have a younger brother....i never bothered to make many friends as my cousins n their friends became my very own....
i am glad I'm a part of this crazy family....i am glad my grand parents n then my uncles and then my cousins had all these kids....its a very strong point against people who just want to stop at one :)
guess i should have called this post "We are a family" ....oh well.....
