I love weddings

I am not a social butterfly.I do enjoy people's company, but again not to a great extent.And looks like my social skills are put to test now with a series of kalyanams lined up.Gosh ! Looks like everyone is getting married.Happened to attend one a few days before and that set me thinking of the trends in today's kalyanams.

Its been raining here in Chennai for the past few days and inspite of that I see weddings in A/C kalyana mandapams.Guess thats to satisfy the maapillai veedu?And one horrible thing about A/C kalyana mandapams is that the homam, and the heavy kancheepuram sarees adorned by our ladies generate hell a lot of heat that you feel like getting out of the A/C hall for a few minutes atleast.

Something else that I look forward to in a kalyanam is the "SAAPAADU". I feel people come to a wedding to eat some good food. The other reason could be to see the bride and the groom and also pass some comments like " payyan nalla height", ponnu konjam colour kammi".And it is with the saapaadu that the wealth of the wedding is decided.All observation is on the payasam, rasam and thayir. The payasam has to be thick, rasam has to be adequately flavoured with perungayam, big pieces of thakkali and kothumalli, the thayir has to have the right consistency- not too watery and not too thick, not too bland and not too sour.If all these are perfect, then it is assumed that the wedding went on well.

Another purpose in attending a wedding is to meet all your relatives- the pattu mamis, the kittu mamas and the other clan and figure out what saree is each one wearing, who has the latest design necklace, yaaru yaaru ponnu/ payyan US/ UK la enga irukka, and some exchange of conversations like " oh Ram Colaradola irukkana, en ponnum anga thaan irukka, nee address kudu, naan avala poi paaka sollaren, appdiye Ram India vanthuttu porachey, konjam podi, oorkai kuduthu en ponnukkum kuduthu vidaren".

If there is one thing that annoys me , it is the light music or is it the jarring and screaming over the mic type of music. Your onnu vitta periyamma will not be able to hear you talking amidst that chaotic music.And what happens with the kutcheris is sometimes saddening too. Many times, people dont listen to these kutcheris.All that they are interested in is talking, talking real loud.

I love attending kalyanams now especially that I am engaged, else I need to go through the ordeal of "height enna?, enna padichurukka? etc etc".Trust me, weddings are the best place to spot the latest trends, styles, which colour is IN, which is NOT.And the best of all is you get a good deal of saathukudi, thengai, some ever silver kinnams, plastic dubbas, and so on after all for attending a wedding. Weddings are lovely I say.