This article is long overdue. Despite being unmarried at 23 year old and not even close to tying the proverbial knot, I feel I have more than enough experience in the realm of Indian weddings to be able to write an article or two or three about how weddings work in our sub-contracted Indian culture. When I say "Indian Wedding" this is an umbrella for Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and other South Asians, as these cultures are clustered together and more often than not overlap.

Think of this as a sort of wedding guide for those young, soon to be married subcontinentals, and indeed, those poor unfortunate non-subcontinent souls who, unbeknownst to them, have incurred god's wrath and decided to marry into a Indian/Bengali/Pakistani/Sri Lankan family. All members of the subcontinetal diaspora worldwide will know what I'm talking about, as this applies to all. Shudder.

The Fights

No Indian wedding is complete without a fight or two. Be it the guest list or the color of napkins, there is always something to have a good ol' fashioned battle royale over. Although normally inconsequential, these fights can sometimes boil over, with people (often close relatives) refusing to attend the wedding and canvassing others to do the same. The reason? No one (boycotees included) are really sure - though it most probably has its roots in the fact that the day of the wedding (planned 6 months ago) has fallen on the same day as a senior auntie's dentist appointment. Said auntie was well within her right to ask the bride's parents to change the day of the wedding. The parents refused outright, resulting in some 'izzat'(honour) related problems for the auntie and other members of her clique.

The Wedding Card

Always a joy to read the spelling mistakes and seventy-seven names crammed into a wedding card the size of a postage stamp.
An example:

"Mr and Mrs Adnan rekwest the pleasure of your company at the Engagement Seremoneee of their beloved shon,
Ivan

Grandosn of the late Tariq Ahmed and Maryam Hussain. Newphew of Hasan Khan, Cousin of Tanveer Yusuf, Ex-husband of Fatimah Raja, Friend of Ameena Sarwar."

The Guest list

Ahh...the guest list. Your social circle tops well over a thousand. Unfortunately, the Doltone House was booked out on June 17th so you had to make do with the local town hall instead - capacity: 250. For a reason unknown to anyone bar god himself, desi parents are compelled to invite all sorts of barely related weirdos to the wedding.

Remember that questionably creepy 'uncle' you met at your cousins' BBQ? - Yup, he's invited. Your closefriend of 15 years, David? No space for him unfortunately.

Guest list are hard - their construction requires a lot of time, effort and patience. They also require common sense, something which in a wedding household is strictly at a premium. So stupid, idiotic, and downright barmy decisions will be made.

The Rituals

The rituals...*deep breaths*. All great cultures have weird and wonderful wedding customs. The Jews hold the groom up on a chair and dance around him - sweet. They proceed by breaking a glass - small scale vandalism, but again, sweet nonetheless. Indian wedding customs on the other hand range from theft and force feeding to eerily disturbing levels of emotional blackmail.

Theft

The theft of course, comes in the form 'Grand Theft Khussa'. For those unfamiliar with Indo-Bengali culture, the wedding celebrations cullminate in a somewhat bizarre ritual where sisters and cousins from the brides side steal (yes, that's right - steal) the grooms shoes. Like a swarm of glitter clad locust(much like one of the seven plagues of Egypt), they swoop in, literally wrestling the shoes off the poor bugger's feet.

He is left there, bewildered - in a state of shock. He has essentially been mugged by a group of sissy girls in front of his family and friends. If the loss of dignity wasn't bad enough, the groom is now obliged to pay obscene amounts of money for the safe return of his shoes...so begins the bargaining. What would you pay for the return of uncomfortable shoes that reveal your short stature? $10...$15 at the most? Yet for some reason, the idiot groom ends up forking over $300 to get his shoes back. It is the ghetto equivalent of being mugged for your Nokia 3210 and being forced to buy it back from the mugger at over 10 times the market rate. Does nobody else find this disturbing? I swear, come to my wedding day, I would rather walk out of the banquet hall bare foot, than pay for the shoes I never wanted to wear in the first place. Or better yet, maybe I'll fight back. Let's see how brave the girls are when I decide to throw a few punches. One black eye = saving of $300. Well worth it if you ask me.

Force-feeding

At some point in midst of wedding fever, the sodding groom will be force-fed ladoo (a delicious Indian sweet, spherical in shape...mucus orange in colour. See picture) by a group of about 33 barely related 'aunties' . Each auntie will turn up with about half a ladoo, ceremoniously forcing it down the grooms throat. In a period lasting no more than half an hour, the groom will have eaten the equivalent of about 10 boxes of sweetmeats - adding an extra 7 kg to his weight in the process.

The Number of Events

I know from personally attending Bengali weddings, that subcontinental weddings have enough events to confuse most attendees into believing that they have been invited to the wedding of a grand Venetian prince, not Mr. Adnan's 23 year old son. The henna cermony, the pre-henna ceremony, the pre-pre-henna and makeup ceremony, the registration, the wedding, the signing of the marraige contract ceremony, the blessing ceremony, musical nights, laptop evenings, egg and spoon race...arrgh. Every little thing is auspicious and sacred. The first time the bride sets foot in the groom's house. The first time the groom does the same but vice versa. The first time they eat at each other's house. By the time the wedding festivities are over, the happy couple have had 3 kids - with twins on the way.

The Cameraman

Perhaps the single most annoying person on the face of the earth. The semi-professional cameraman scours the wedding hall, 1987 camera in hand with an absurdly bright light attached. He will invariably catch you when you are stuffing your face with kebabs, or when you have a few grains of rice stuck to your chin. His light is almost blinding; comparable, perhaps, to a near death experience, yet he still keeps it on full blast, with an astonishing disregard for the pawns in his sordid Bollywood debut.

The Clothes

The bride comes in wearing a red sari (think bed sheet embedded with sequins) and the groom is dressed like Aladdin. I am yet to see a Indian/Bengali wedding where something other than this is the case.

The Segregation

Oh boy. Segregating the sexes at weddings just do not work. For those who are unfamiliar, the intention behind this is fantastic, seperate the men from the women, minimise intermingling of the sexes, promote a modest culture. Great. Unfortunatley, this holy intention isn't shared by all. The organisers seem to think that a mere silk curtain will prevent wife-seeking loners from the men's side from venturing into enemy teritory. The sanctity of the curtain will last for about half an hour after which the first breach will occur - usually a close male relative/uncle. Before long, the curtain will fall - much like the berlin wall, with folk flocking to either side rejoicing in their liberating victory over the tyrant organisers. A bit of advice - segregation will only work with an electric fence. And perhaps a few dogs patrolling the buffer zone.

And so, there we have it. A guide. A review - call it what you want. When it comes to the circus show that is an Indian wedding, there's always one looming on the horizon.