Wedding boos

(I found a collection of columns I wrote a very long time ago when I lived in Delhi, in what now seems like almost another life. But they seemed fun, with the much-vaunted Mumbai-Delhi rivalry in existence even now, so I thought why not....!)

It has been a hectic week. The kind when you grab a little sleep whenever possible, be it during the night - where sleep traditionally belongs - or at moments in the daytime, in the car (though better not while you yourself are driving), at your keyboard at work, in the loo...wherever you have a moment of personal peace to let those active synapses shut off for a brief while. One rather unexpected place I have found nap-in-worthy is a traffic jam. And those I have had close encounters with over the past few days.

'Tis evidently wedding season in the glorious city of Delhi, and an integral part of the nuptial celebrations is a traffic jam. Guests and relatives alike, all dressed to kill - or die, considering the arbitrary manner of their wanderings in busy vehicular lanes of passage - teem outside garishly be-lit and bedecked venues, mill myriadly along the pavements and clog streets in a casually proprietorial way that lovers have with their accustomed beloveds. This tends, for reasons unfathomed by the cloggers, to make traffic slow and then gradually grind to a noisy, indignant, impatient halt outside pandals, temples and reception grounds. Dialogue does little to sort out the problem, coloured as it inevitably is with a certain non-bonhomous mindset.

The underlying problem seems to be that of the occasion itself, more than the people populating it. A couple of days ago, en route to a dinner party in a neighbouring state, I became entangled in just that sort of situation - a wedding-induced traffic jam. Bejewelled, bedecked and be-sworn-at invitees straggled across what was supposed to be the main state thoroughfare, meandering around stalled cars, sauntering past growling container trucks, stopping to chat in front of testy taxis and irate auto-rickshaws. Have wedding, have reception, goes the mandated sequence; and have reception have guests, is the logical consequence. And, obviously, have guests for reception, have traffic snarls.

So, having chosen the culprit as the cause - the marriage celebration itself - the ifs, buts and byways needs perforce to be examined. One major factor in the mess that causes a rise in vehicular and/or driver choler is the degree of downmarketness involved, the vulgarity, the non-u-ness, the overall glitz and glitter of the celebration and its ramifications. Be it elephants or horses, rose-spotted Contessas or spangled stretch limos, mill-owners or mill-workers, the idea is almost always to make a noise, the louder the better, keeping up with the Joneses be damned and out-done beyond the neighbouring housing society. And, the greater the blockade on the roads around the axial point of the whole, the better! Class, after all, involves subtlety, silence, and a let's-not-attract-attention-or-annoy-the-tax-department elegance. And good traffic management, too.

I encountered a wedding reception of the first kind recently. Guests were greeted at the gate of the hostess' house by two rather disgruntled pachyderms, both shuffling restively from foot to foot, unhappy with not just their trappings of flowers but with the ethnic dancers whirling and bellowing untunefully to greet invitees. Bright lights lit up the chaos, and cross klaxons and chagrined chauffeurs added to the vernacular cacophony. Inside the house - with an interior décor as jarring as the general decibel level - hordes of unwashed banjaras sat in groups, some displaying their presumably musical talents, others their costumes, still others their bad teeth.

Traffic within was as bad as that without. People gathered in groups, each getting in the way of the adjacent one, every little clique expressing vacuity at high volume. Jewels glittered like the high beams of visitor's vehicles, teeth gleamed with equal intensity. Turbans towered, reminiscent of the red lights spinning atop the governmental cars that stopped at the gate to disgorge their passengers. Fashion bewildered, from mal-fitting zari-strewn red gowns swathed in tinselly gauze to dull gold lame saris worn with the panache of badly draped curtains, from allegedly gypsy-style skirts to form-fitting black satin somethings that defied description. Waiters wove unsteadily and sleepily through the crowd, their offerings cold, pallid and pooling on trays held beseechingly out to anyone who would accept. And, at every turn, sycophants cooed and sighed sweet nothings, presenting their fondly imagined best profiles towards the flashbulbs of the gossip press.

Somewhere in the mess, the blushing bride and - one could assume - her bashful bridegroom lurked, like earthworms that creep unscathed through the neon blurs of speeding cars on a winter night. All the while, outside, the traffic blared and bulldozed hopefully, in futile anticipation of a time where it would pass in peace.