Sooraj Barjatya Diaries

Notes from my cousin's wedding. Do not read if you're not used to my long mundane writing everything down thing.

14^th Feb

Fancy man traveling behind us seeing the ‘landscape’ after years today. ‘Time of my life’ he yells into his headset. Talking of coordinating with the trucking company etc. “I can see all the villages, fields, railway lines, fields after so long. I know you do son, I do too. I took a lot of pictures”. I’m excited for him.

The excited man is now talking to his neighbour about coming here after 35 years. About his import/export business. The neighbour is telling him about the changes in Mayawati era. Our aunty neighbour is like Bakri Bua, getting worried about her bags and kadi chawal, standing up with all her bags 20 minutes before the stop. Family of 4 with a baby. The mother sings and bounces him on her lap, takes him for walks. His nose is blocked and he’s been crying and crying. The scrawny hubby is just sitting with his head in his hands. Grandma is least interested, looking out of the window. Dadaji plays with him and talks gibberish but gets bored. The two polished accents behind me are now talking about Wharton and MIT.

Afghani nuskha paurush durbalta ke rogi milein.

The train is a swarna shatabdi and so is very fancy for me since I haven’t been in 1^st AC for a while. They gave us roses in the morning, for V day. So strange, getting flowers from the railways on VDay.

The reflection of silhouettes of the family are an alternate film double exposured on the scenes of the sarson ke khet outside. Grandpa’s shepherd’s cap and baby’s round head. I recognize a term that the corporate gyan circle mention. “Multiplier effect”. After 2 hours of finance talk, they finally exchange names. In total contrast to them is our UP Bhaiyya, also in 1^st class, also in business, also discussing finance. “HELLO?! Pappu? Abhi nikle hain Unnao se, pahunchne wali hogi bas. WHO DELIVERY KA KYA HUA? AMMA YAAR HUM TUMSE PEHLE HI KAHE THE KI USKO MAT SAUPNA KAAM” Another “HAAN PEHLA DIBBA HAI, JAHAN PE US DIN GADIYA LAGAYE THE”.

Trader 1 deals elaichi by the ton, apparently.

 I’ve been up for 30 hours, now lying in front of the telly with the gents, watching cricket. All my uncles and cousins exchanging expert comments. Rohit Sharma who H. “Bhaiyyu” Mama calls “mahashatak” with characteristic sarcasm inherited from his father gets out at 15, just like the other two before him. The match is at a dull stage and I’m ready to pass out at any time but sleep won’t come, just drowsiness. Pom Masi asks Bhaiyyu for Pan Parag. “Masala do na phir humko, muh mein dhar lis” I sleep through the match being drawn, nieces trying to wake me, someone takes off my glasses. The aunties are dholak peetoing. It’s strange how I know the words to so many bhajans subconsciously. “Bahut ho gayi bhajnavali, ab kuch ooh lala karte hain” Ma is dancing to Ooh La La and knows all the steps, she’s such a boombaat. The family has suddenly discovered my tapori skillz and I’ve been recruited into an item number with my cousin (Ainvayi Ainvayi, I am Ranveer Singh, obviously) at the sangeet tomorrow. It’s good to see everyone together and happy, it’s been a bad year. Even Monch, blackened with grief and various illnesses, smiles distantly. The ladies joke that after dancing to Munni Badnam with so much energy, they’re going to be rubbing Zandu Balm all over. Everyone is a nautanki in this clan. I’m looking through Mausaji’s Hindi Sahitya and Masi’s play brochures and planning to steal one.

15^th Feb

The pro sangeet singers are here, using clichéd lines about how pahadi people are very sweet so their voices will also be sweet. The aunties are losin’ it. There’s one shaking it like the auntie in the Tide ad. I wish my coffee was irish but I just realized I’m actually very good at gharelu shit, laughing and clapping and even dancing with my mind elsewhere. I think I get it from Ma, who is at this point pretending to be a shy young bahu with a ghunghat on her face. This homeliness is only for the Joshis though.

People are saying ‘very gooood’ to people in the most half assed dismissive ways. I’m quietly standing at the back and muh maroing in the snacks at the moment. The sangeet aunties are finally packed off after a very long session and the DJ starts. There’s a very pro performance of Kajrare by a girl called M who everyone wants to marry their sons off to (my mother tried,too) because she’s very pretty and bubbly and has a good job etc (sadly, also a boyfriend), yours truly is also checkin’ it which is borderline creepy because she’s like kind of distantly related to me through marriage (like all pahadis are to each other) but more so because she’s supposed to be a didi figure, not one to secretly check out at weddings. R and I do our thing, the mother is shaking it, various aunts decide to show off. First the men disappear, then the women, then us (the young girls?). Everyone is drinking downstairs and pretending it’s a big secret. The women/girls tell us about their school/college drunken antics, how they know the groom. Mans (my first cousin) and I stay for a bit after they’re gone bitching about common acquaintances. Upstairs everyone is drunk. The whole family, and everyone’s in a mood to perform lasciviously. At some point I find myself downstairs alone, scrounging and drinking the dregs from various bottles. V. Mama takes his shirt off and everyone cracks up while he does his Dabangg dance and he only gets dressed once we threaten him saying his wife is coming. Ma is doing Nagin dance. V.Mama and M.Mama pose like the drunken bros they are, the Dabangg and the intellectual. Everyone, even khadoos distant relatives are dancing and laughing and falling. V. Mama is seen downstairs, loitering and tells me “Yaar, I’m drunk!” I tell him I know and it’s ok and everyone’s drunk and he bear hugs me saying “Tu meri favourite bhaanji hai”. Chota and Mota Shakeel, the brothers, one a former Lucknow stud/engineering dropout/student pilot turned disillusioned, dark circled Delhi call center worker and the other a graphic designer who now prints boris and does household chores – both look like bouncers/Mafiosi are seen downstairs after being invisible all night claiming “main neeche ka kaam sambhal raha tha”. The young ladies send me to locate a bottle of white wine which I fail to do since I’m accosted by drunk relatives at every corner telling me how they’ve seen me since I was as big as their hand. At home, it’s T. Didi’s birthday and everyone is trying hard to stay up till 12 and cut the cake.

16^th Feb

Today is a relaxed day. The men are talking politics and corruption, the women are off in one corner. There is makkhan malai to be eaten. I’m worrying about how I’m an epic fail at my academics. The kids see a procession going past saying “*someone* zindabad” and in return shout “MURDABAD!” and stick their tongues out. Eccentric aunt is discussing drinks arrangements with the uncles. Now I’m home trying to read for my next tut.

Today is the one part of weddings I hate the most – Mehendi. I hate how it looks and more than anything I HATE how it smells. I’d much rather prefer to have inkstains on my hands, thank you. And I hate when all the womenfolk get so excited about the goddamn thing so I escape to the chatt where a few men are scattered discussing more politics (UP Election time). The rallies have blocked the roads. H. Mama is the supervisor, he directs all the workers, men and women of the house with ‘beta’s and shabashis. V.Mama is looking at last night’s pictures. The gents are sitting and I spy the boozes being brought in. Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha and Rahul Gandhi are rumoured to be around in various parts of the city. The kiddies complain that there is no room for them to share chips in. I flit in and out of all the rooms, not really belonging to either one since I’m either too young or old or chick or boy. 80 year old Baki is rubbing her bum and saying ‘munni ke gaal/bhel (bhel = ass in kumaoni) gulabi”. This generation has gone out of hand I tell you. I’m now taking in the smell of whiskey to clear my nose, stealing peanut chaat from the uncles. I’m trying to find someone to get me drunk. V. Mama is feeling too sorry for himself and telling me of his aches and pains and exercise/diet regimen and some uncle asks me if I’m a communist (since I study where I study). My dad says I’m a free thinker, I say I am nothing. I am bringing things to the incapacitated women, shuffling kids from one parent to another, taking videos of pahadi budhiyas singing dirty songs about their dewars, my mother being obscene again. Ma sneaks me some wine, bless her. H. Mama gets emotional when asked by eccentric aunt if he has been drinking (Yes. I’ve been working since 7am and also yes, I did get upset thinking about Him, so my eyes are red. And yes, I’ve had a couple) Mota Shakeel and GR Jijaji and I do cricket talk while Chiya plays with GR’s iPhone and seeks attention. The little boys call her ‘chikni chameli’ (her favourite song).

17^th Feb

Ok, so I feel really uncomfortable in beauty parlours. I only go to one to get a haircut and then fuck off. Apart from the strange sense of inadequacy that I get from practically everything (I really pull that card out a lot, don’t I? As Daria said “I don’t have low self esteem, I have low esteem for everyone else”)  I don’t like being appraised or dressed by anyone else. I also get kind of grossed out at the sight of women being buffed and oiled and cleaned and dehaired and massaged and peeled. It’s all too … intimate (?) or whatevs. I’ve been here for an hour and a half. My sari was draped in 15 minutes, my cousin is still within, getting ready. I want to go home and be ungraceful.

At the shadi, Mans and I check out the food and comment on everything. Semi-estranged relatives are rumoured to be seen. The baraat arrives, the white haired men scramble to look important, M.Mama has absolutely no clue what to do in such situations but has to look like a patriarch. The girls give flowers to al the women from the boy’s side. I managed to get under people’s legs and wrestle one shoe out. I’m leching at a white haired pixie cut firang from some La Marts’ exchange program, part Annie Lennox, Part Diane Lane, Part Catherine Zeta Jones. Ma is doing “Namaste ji, aapne kuch khaya? Apse mil ke bada acha laga” etc with her Air India style team of women near the gate and accosting people who aren’t leaving yet, are lost etc. It’s too funny. V. Mama ke pet mein Lady Gaga naach rahi hai, 15 times to the loo this afternoon. In Kumaoni we call it “cherua” and to cure it he drank sat isabgol, the genius. Juta kaand, they had one, we had one, the one they had was in the pajama of a 12/13 year old boy. He taunted us all night with it and dared us to get it out somehow. At some point he was dancing, my mother distracted him and we all lunged, then came a gangrape/struggle in which his side and our side were wrestling for the shoe with this kid in the middle. So the kid cries, throws a tantrum, his mom cries “mere bacche ko mara, usko yeh problem hai woh problem hai, bahut sensitive hai blah”, his dad is pissed. Scenes. We feel like villains for a bit, but resume bitching about it. One day I will remind this kid of this. However, ultimately, the groom’s cheap ass mother gave us a paltry sum meant for just R (the bride’s sister) which we only discovered the next morning. R said give it back for all I care. Baks looks like an old queen or actress, like Devika Rani (of course, a little younger and better maintained than this picture) She has a little clutch purse and embroidered beaded parrots on her pallu. KM’s sisters, the exact same person at various ages, sing hypnotic pahadi songs and sing taunts and insult at the desis (plains people) which they don’t understand. Bride, her father, groom and his mother all fall asleep during ceremonies and are prodded awake. Everything looks desolate at 4am when they leave, it’s windy and the venue has been dismantled.

18^th Feb

I’m sitting on the chatt of the barsati in N.Bagh, it’s time to fly patangs, the wind is good and the sun is shining. I’m not taking pictures. I’m just looking around. That limca sticked is STILL on the disused bathroom, the giant climbing cactus has died. Ru.Mami is showing her kids that this is where their dadu lived. I’m called to excavate our part of the house. This is what history means to me. I just want to be a part of something that’s been lost but feels close. I use an emergency lamp and open cupboards and look at termite eaten mangled corpses of books and this whole scene breaks my heart. 1927. 4 generations. And no one seems to care right now (apart from the one strand of the family living in it). I’d get the place at least swept and aired if given the job. I save a few books, a college text on TS Eliot, Why I became Pro Soviet, a Ramcharitramanas and some other prayer book that probably belonged to my Nani, History of the Tudors from 1938 that I couldn’t leave behind because it called to me and told me to take it with me and I felt too sad to leave behind an artifact. I found photographs of my brother, uncles, cousin, grandparents, parents from before I was born, Baki and her husband, an old poster/painting from the Ramayana that my mother loved. The fam is bitching out the new in-laws “woh chunni kaisi chadhai thi, ekdum sadar bazaar”. Back on the barsati now, site of neighbour romance between V. Mama and P. Mami. There are azaans all over; the sound of all of them in this small mohalla just transfixes you, voices bouncing off each other. When they’re done, all you can hear is the sound of kites cutting through the air and boys shouting at each other. R.Chachi asks me to come and stay in the summer. Sometimes when I think about what I want, about getting old, all I can really think of is that I wish I was a box someone found, after I was long gone, with my journals or pictures or letters or books in it and would try to reconstruct me and remember me from little things like notes scribbled on books. I want to be discovered.