Family weddings throw up the most conundrums of modern society. Which are the ones to attend, or boycott? There are some you look forward to, others that result in tantrums and the dredging up of family histories. Is it okay to go for one cousin's nuptials but not for another's? Sibling resentments, in-law factions, they're served up at the breakfast table and simmer through the work day, before being used for negotiations at the dinner table where a working solution no less challenging, or fragile, than the Radcliffe Line may result.
Did the invitation arrive by post, or was it hand-delivered? By a minion or a member of the family? Were reminders WhatsApped or phoned in? These are the markers that cloak festering dynastic disputes and insults saved up for airing on such occasions. To say nothing of the accommodations that are offered as a sweetener - in a luxury hotel or what passes as a resort, with free ironing services or not, and whether the in-room hamper includes sushi or just a survival kit to stave off hunger but not hangovers.
You'd think weddings among one's circle of friends would be simpler, based on the premise of whether you can, or can't, attend. But Facebook has helped acquaintances from one's past, best left alone, land up at the doorstep with a box of sweets to extract a promise of being present at a child's wedding reception "for old times sake". That you may not have met or even remembered each other in a couple of dozen years, or even known the existence of the bride, or groom, is irrelevant - the Indian wedding is a civic juggernaut at which attendance is obligatory.
Since my wife has a usually sharp opinion on most matters, she dismisses such invitations without too many courtesies, leaving me to wonder why our families or friends ever bother to invite us on such occasions. This, though, is just a ploy. Because most weddings happen on an 'auspicious' day, it isn't possible to be at as many venues, leave alone destinations, so it helps sieve the wheat of the invitations from the chaff, so to say. "We have to go for Feroza's sister-in-law's niece's wedding because her brother's boss's wife is my client," my wife informs me. That's how we map our wedding turnouts: Nikhil's son's engagement because his cousin has a villa in Nice; Shobhit's nephew's mehendi because he's a useful "contact"; the complete Sharma wedding because "it's in Croatia, you idiot, where we'll never go on our own". And with our children's peers being claimed like the proverbial ninepins by a nesting urge, it's becoming difficult to issue edicts on who is to attend what, when and where.
Today is one of those propitious days when, from the pile of invitations in the post, hundreds of young people seem to be plighting their troth. So my son's out of town for a buddy's bachelor party, my wife to pose for pictures at a nephew's cousin's wedding, even though she was not invited to the nephew's nuptials, and my daughter at a wedding collateral - consoling a friend whose boyfriend ditched her to marry someone 'approved' by his clan to which they're invited but are squabbling about the social niceties of attending. Me? I'm home alone by choice, not accident, because of a recurring inability to remember the names of bride, groom, parents or hosts, resulting in my wife's reluctance to have me on a guest list I'd rather not be on in the first place.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
