The best part about my blog posts is how I come up with innovative excuses for not posting anything. I think half of my planning time (I get around 20 minutes a day to plan and create posts, if any) goes in thinking of excuses for not posting this time and the rest of the time goes in typing it. Like today. My latest excuse is marriages… that is, in plural.
Not mine, of course. I got married nearly 10 years back…Gosh! 10 years!? And have no intention of repeating the experience of an Indian wedding. To know my thoughts about an Indian wedding, you can go through my previous posts (I do: Part 1 and I do: Part 2). To say that part 3 and 4 are still being written says volumes about the amount of time and energy that goes in describing an Indian marriage. For an immersive experience, you can watch the movie Hum Apke Hain Kaun. If you survive till the end, you can tell me what you think of it 🤣
Getting back to the point, everyone around me is suddenly getting married. For 10 years, I had been cocooned in a false sense of safety which was suddenly torn away from me when one of my husband’s cousin got engaged in August. Considering we are Indians, obviously everyone was involved. I played the clueless bhabhi (brother’s wife), and played it well. So, people decided to take it up a notch and another close cousin got engaged, then my own brother-in-law and then one of my older nieces. And since, it is inauspicious (and potentially unsafe) to keep a marriage waiting for more than three months (lest the bride or groom decide to elope–alone, of course), the marriages had to happen soon.
Ramadan is anyway a busy time but with three weddings–one in each weekend after Ramadan (one of them being my brother-in-law’s)–we were cleaning up, shopping, hosting guests, shopping, hosting guests, booking, hosting guests, attending marriage, attending guests, cleaning up, attending guests, cooking, hosting guests… hosting more guests until we couldn’t stand and couldn’t walk. Ultimately, I decided not to visit the third marriage. (I still need to talk to my aunt and apologize for bailing. I hope she forgives me.)
And did I forget to mention, I had to look nice…perfect…immaculate…polished to shiny perfection…
Especially me, because I am the eldest bhabhi of the clan. I had the duty to look like someone who was holding herself together perfectly well while all I wanted to do was whine about having to run up and down the stairs all day. I had to put on face packs while cooking and apply make up while attending guests who were filling the house to seams. I would apply blush on one cheek and go meet someone, apply shadow on half an eye and go help someone, apply lipstick on half a lip and deal with my daughter. And then I would apply mascara. And spread on different spots of my face. Then I would wash it and start over.
Sometimes I think that make up brushes are equipment of modern torture. They can’t beat you anymore so they tell you to apply make up– there are brushes for everything blush, highlighter, powder, liner, eye shadow application, shadow mixing, mascara, eyebrow… And they always poke you in the eye. You apply eye shadow–it throws powder in your eyes. You put on liner–it is more inside the eyes than out. You clean it and put on just mascara and it pokes you in the eye until you drop the brush (on your cheeks, of course) and howl in pain and swear to god’s that you would never do it again. Then you wash your face and do it again!
Not sure if I got the order correct. I never got the order correct so I got a Color Correction (CC) cream to avoid primer, foundation, concealer, highlighter… It didn’t do anything but it made it look like I was trying, so no one commented. My pathetic attempts to make up were lauded as “Well tried!” “Look at you, you have actually put on make up!”
As far as I am concerned, I looked like a pink-faced monkey. Well at least, I wasn’t looking like a silver-faced monkey like nine years back when my sister-in-law tried to do my makeup. That experience was what drove me to do my own makeup. Of course, I could have got a professional help. But I didn’t have the time in the many days of festivities.
So, I just trudged on. I would say, I did well.
Honestly, in retrospect, it wasn’t so bad. I met a lot of nice people I couldn’t recognise (because of make up, of course) but it was nice to see smiling faces and spend time with my sister-in-law who lives far away. We had a housefull of kids and loads of drama going on that it part of every Indian marriage, but it was fun.
Now, I still have laundry to deal with, which is a remnant of the marriages that started three weeks back. So, goodbye for now. I hope I have given an excuse good enough that you will excuse me for not posting for another few days! 🤣🤣🤣
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 