The Just Married Please Excuse bloggers contest

As usual, a little bit late to the party. Actually, I find that when I'm less busy, I tend to sink into a morass of laziness and find it too difficult to do anything, really, whereas when I'm forced to multitask and work 24/7, I get a lot more things done - like blogging, or contributing to a friend's contest, for instance. Of course, meanwhile I have meandered quite off-topic, haven't I? So back to Y's contest, based on her hilarious new book, Just Married, Please Excuse.


Actually, we had so much drama for so many years before we actually got married that I think our married life is actually pretty tame by comparison. But just before we got married, after opposing the concept for several years, my parents finally came around, just about a month before A and I were to take off for INSEAD in France. And they obviously wanted to meet A's parents and discuss arrangements. We decided to do it on neutral ground and halfway between the two parental homes, which were really far apart - for those who know Delhi, A's parents lived in the Univ area and mine live in Gurgaon! So we decided on IIC as a venue. His parents, mine and A and me were to converge there after A and I finished work one evening. I was quite nervous as to how this meeting would go off, whether they would hate each other at first sight...let's say I was like the anxious mother of a potential bride in an arranged marriage seeing-the-girl situation.


That cold winter day, I had worn a very chic black and white wool dress to work. While I was out for a meeting, as I stepped out of the car, I felt a super-cold draught of air riding up my back. 'Wow, really cold day!', I thought to myself in typical late-bloomer/ tubelight style. Then suddenly it dawned on me. The hip to neck zip of the dress had parted way, all the way!!! My entire back, including..err, innerwear, was on display! Thankfully I had also grabbed a matching cape that morning so I slung it around my back, Jayalalitha style and marched regally to the meeting. By dint of moving slowly and carefully as if I had a ramrod up my a**, I managed the meeting without the client realising that anything was wrong with me apart from an unusual stiffness.

I hunted frantically for safety pins back at office but in these modern days of western wear, nobody was wearing anything like a mangalsutra with a chain of safety pins slung on it. How I missed sari-clad women that day! It was already going on afternoon on a really busy day, so I couldn't slink off and buy a new outfit so I dialled mom and told her to schlep an outfit for me when she arrived at IIC that evening.

As it happened, A's parents, mine and A and I converged upon IIC at the exact same time. By this time, the discomfort of officially meeting my inlaws with my back hanging out of my dress was too high to be borne. Muttering a hasty hello, I grabbed the pack of clothes from mom and disappeared in the direction of the rest room, leaving it to poor A, who hadn't even officially met my parents yet, to manage all the awkwardness of introductions and greetings. What my parents in law thought of me disappearing, in a chic dress, and reappearing in a demure salwar kameez, courtesy Mom, I can only imagine! Must have been a rude shock for them later, methinks :)

My parents, sister and I are very fond of pranks, puns, jokes and so on. Shortly after A and I got married, we moved to my parents place to stay for a few days. The first night, as dad left our room after seeing that we had everything we needed, I called after him, "Good night. Sudarimasu!" That was our elongated family version of 'Sweet dreams'. A looked at me, puzzled, and asked what I was saying. I told him it was Japanese for 'sleep well'. He was maha impressed by my family's ability to assimilate foreign languages into our daily routine :)

Within ten days of marriage, A and I were living in a suitcase-sized apartment in Fontainebleau and enjoying the experience. It was a very social campus, and everyone either threw dinenr parties or attended them every night. A few dinner parties chez nous later, A felt rather apologetic about the fact that we didn't serve non-veg, since veg moi was the chef on offer. He finally decided the situation was too embarassing and decided to cook some chicken.

Having first sourced the recipe from his mom, he considerately asked me to stay away and chill in the bedroom while he took over the kitchen/ living room - he knew I might feel sick at the sight of raw meat. A few minutes later, he dashed in. "Do you know what's cumin? And what does cloves mean? Do we have any? What is cinnamon - is it a vegetable?" I took pity on him and offered to lay out all the necessary spices for him, and then retired to my solitary splendour.

About fifteen minutes later, when my eyes and sinuses were on fire from the smells emanating from the kitchen, he dashed in again. "Mom said to cook the onions till they turn brown. What share of brown - should they be light brown like sand or dark brown like chocolate?" I ran to the kitchen, took one look at the pan and collapsed. There were onion cinders at the bottom of the pan!!!

Having said that, with a little help and an inspired addition of yoghurt by me, the chicken dish actually turned out to be delicious and is still remembered by our friends. (I have to say this else A may kill me!)

Sometime later, when we were back in India, we attended an art exhibition at the Habitat center, and A really liked some paintings by an artist called Dhananjay. Since we had decided to start collecting art in a modest way, we made the artist an offer in his visitor’s book and left – the painting would only be delivered after the exhibition was over. Some days later, the artist called and said he’d come over and deliver the painting that evening.

He turned up clutching two paintings under his arm, and we started talking about this, that and the other. Then he turned to us earnestly and said, “I’m going to show you two paintings from my collection. Yeh pyaar hai. Isko aap separate mat karna. Is pyaar ko aap ikhatte rakhna.”

A and I rose up in each other’s estimation as people capable of having a somewhat metaphysical discussion on the nature of love with an artist, and this conversation continued for a few minutes more before it dawned on us. The artist happened to be Bengali, and what he was really saying to us was, “This is a pair of paintings. Please keep the pair together!”