You Could also do it wrong.. That works too!!!

My parents' approval in many respects seemed to be "a piece of cake", quite frankly because I literally put in zero efforts into it. In fact, while my mom was groom hunting by her various means, my brother did one day come up to me worried and asked," You do know mom is looking for other guys don't you?" I replied I did, he then grew more tense and asked, "Fir Sid ka kya hoga, usko pata hai??". I just couldn't help but smile, even though he's my brother he couldn't see a fellow trooper fall prey to a woman's indecisiveness, even if that woman was his own sister! That moment was really heart warming, and then I assured him that I knew what I was doing. And while that did work for me a little sooner than expected, that spelled trouble for Sid, as in a land not so far away, were the completely clueless Bong parents!

But before we get to that, a little context: Now this is no secret that once parents have given their approval, they want things to move fast. Wait a minute not just fast but at the speed of light! So you can imagine the scene at my house, after the Dusshera conversation.

So for the next one month this was the typical scene waiting for me when I got back from office:

(With anticipating eyes) sooo... when do we meet his parents?
(With suppressed irritation) Next Month
(Slightly satisfied) What date?
(Visibly irritated) Don't know yet!

The month passed, no parents' meet happened, my understandably worried Mom asks if there's a problem. Has he changed his mind ( At this point I just rolled my eyes and thought, Ya! Right! As if that's ever going to happen!). I had to tell her the truth (There was no easy way to tell it though), "Mom, the deal is.. his parents have no clue about this!" And then to back him up, I gave all the nonsense like he's not had the chance to break it to them, he's not that open with them, he's been living away for too long and all that. When the truth was that he had chickened out (He's going to kill me if he reads this). As already established, I have a cool set of parents ;), Mom understands and says " As long as you promise he's going to talk some day, and that day is coming soon.. I'll give him time!"

Now that I've laid the base for justifying why I did what I did. Here's the age old tip to get a chicken to "Man Up", ladies take note ;) :

After days of coaxing him, cajoling him, pampering him, pleading I gave in to what I'm best at - "Threatening him!" ( You can't call me the devil here, you have no idea how difficult it was to handle uncomfortable questions that came from my dad after he was told about the "Guy").

Now how did I threaten him, first they were perfectly harmless threats, you don't tell them till this weekend I won't share my food with you ( I take my food very seriously :| ) or won't wish you good night. No prizes for guessing, that didn't help at all!

My patience wore thin and finally I just woke up one Sunday, called him up and asked, "Have you talked to your Mom yet?" The expected answer. Wasting no time for chit chat, I said, " Do not call me till you have spoken at home!". Having said that I went back to sleep, and by the time I sat down for lunch I had got the call. My heart was in melt mode already for I thought I had been to harsh on him, so I had thought I'll be rude only for one question and then give him more time. So I asked, "So.. You told?" He said "Yes I did". Let me be honest, I hadn't expected this one would work either :P leave it working so fast!! That really did make me feel awesome and evil both at the same time, Awesome, because he couldn't bear the idea of me not talking to him. Evil, that I had to stoop to this level to get my work done.

Anyway, breaking the news was only the start of the battle for him. See here's how he got it wrong, you cant expect to just bring up a girl in a random conversation and expect your parents to accept her! Right? Of course there is going to be disapproval, disappointment. It was totally understandable that his parents weren't all Gung-ho about it, only because they hadn't known at that time how awesome I am :D!

But this did have one desirable outcome, his parents did decide to come over to Delhi albeit to talk sense into their "Only Son", who had by that time Manned Up enough to stand by his words ( Was super impressed then, still am when I think back!!, still think he could have opened up earlier though..). But this way or that, he did convince his parents too, they agreed to meet me, loved me :D and I loved them too!! ( A little more than I love him :P )        

And my world was rosy again!! Long story short.. tell your folks early or tell them when a sword's dangling on your neck, they love you enough to see your happiness and let you have it :)

Get the Ground Work Right

I'm not really sure what feelings to vent (as established already I'm not stressed), so I thought why don't I share the first basic and most dreaded step that everybody who chose their own life partner had to take: Telling the Parents!

Now I'm not saying that there is any easy way to do it, but let's give our parents a little more credit shall we? Parents these days are way cooler than they were ever in the history of our country. So with that situation in mind, breaking the news should be a piece of cake. Right? Not quite?

Anyway, to each his own. I'm not sure if there is a guide book on how to approach this topic, so I'll just share my experience (which was relatively easy) and maybe people could borrow a leaf from it. It would have been tricky for me given that the "Boy" and I belong to different communities, yes it kind of still is a big deal but then it somehow only adds to my amusement now.

Oh yeah.. sorry I have a habit of digressing, I was sharing how I told my parents, lets start: We started dating about three years ago, it was then itself that I told my mom that there's this Bong guy in office and he likes me ( talk about forward thinking!! At that point of time I wasn't even sure if there ever would be a future and I happily told my mom) her reaction was as expected muted and non approving. She told me, I don't think you should encourage him, he's not the same as us ( Moms I tell you :P ).

So anyway, now that the seed was planted, I knew she would think it till eternity, and as we started knowing each other better, I got him over (with a larger group of friends of course) home in various spans of time. This was primarily done so my mom doesn't forget.

Now being an Indian girl who is in the wrong side of 20s it's obvious that my mother would go berserk trying to find the right guy for me. That's where I acted smart, I let her do her thing, no high tension drama. She told her friends to find a suitable match, she became online savvy (if you know what I mean), scolded my dad for not having enough friends with boys of similar age.. the whole charades. And all this while I just sat in the back seat and enjoyed the show, for it's true that I wasn't sure about my choice either so I really didn't know if I should or should not present the Bong Boy in front of them just yet or not. So I just patiently waited for either my feelings to clear out or my parents to give me an ultimatum to settle down with some random guy they chose.

Neither happened!! Instead the most unexpected thing happened, last year on Dusshera/Durga Pooja my mom said lets go to CR park and visit a pandal. This is not surprising, we're an inquisitive bunch. We are happy experiencing new things, and given that the food in that area is super awesome that time of the year is an excuse good enough in itself. As I was pretty excited about the food, it didn't even occur to me that Mom had ulterior motives ( show me good food and I'd be so lost I wont even know if I'm sharing the table with an angry elephant!!), but still it occurred to me to confirm if the food.. so sorry.. the celebrations would still be on as it was almost afternoon. So I decided to call my Bong connection to confirm :D, he told me that last day is over in the afternoon. So I told my mom there was no point going, let's go watch Dusshera instead ( I'm a huge fan of Dusshera!! I never miss it :D). So we start out on our journey Mom and Me ^_^ and this is when she asks " Is he still interested in you?" I'm like huh! what! where do i hide! Damn! There is no escape, I cant jump off the metro!!" all this even before she completed her question. I mean come on Mom always knows, so conversations don't have to give out exact details, just references are enough. And that's when I realized that we were not going to eat in CR park had we gone there (minor heartbreak :P) Mom just wanted authentic setting, so filmy she is ;). After the moment of panic had passed I replied in a very nonchalant way " Don't know.. we'll ask him tomorrow" Mom says, "Ok! If his reply is yes, ask him to talk to his parents. Papa has agreed too!!!" And in my heart I could hear a million crackers and  chanted a million thanks for giving me the best mom in the whole world :) She surely does rock :)  

And that's how I got the approval, almost on a platter. How he approached the topic was quite the contrary, but that would be discussion matter of another blog post.

Till then..
See you around!

Why this blog?

Beauty blogs are afloat aplenty, fashion advice comes dime a dozen. They make sure you look the best on your big day, but how do you keep yourself from going mad in the run up to the first life changing event that you would have a full recollection of, by way of the numerous photographs, videos, facebooks posts and what not!!!

 So in the interest of bridekind (the dictionary would take some time to adopt the word, but you get what I mean) I've decided to take a stab at it.

But first a confession, before I started writing this I did search the net for "Bridal Stress" and what I got was adverts for psychiatrists who tell you feeling stressed is normal. I mean.. Come On!!... That's the best they could come up with? Given that they are licensed and have access to anti depressants, does that excuse them from even trying to understand female emotions? I get it.. who would listen to a woman ramble when it's easier to pop a placebo and tell her it will take care of her "stress".

Mind you I'm only exaggerating a bit :) don't take it personally. I too agree it's alright to be stressed before your wedding, but what I wanted to tell you really was, that it's completely natural to not be stressed too!!
Yeah I know we women!! How can we have stark opposite reactions to one situation? The answer is simple.. we're special (not crazy.. just special :D) each and every one is different. And yet, we might connect in some strange way.

The bottom line is that I'm super freaked that I'm not the least bit stressed about my wedding at all! The psychiatrist website says I'm supposed to be a emotional roller coaster 4 months away from my wedding. And all I'm feeling right now is elated on the free pass on the unlimited guilt free shopping!! So I thought, maybe if fellow brides-to-be validate my non-stress as completely normal, I'll save shrink money and buy another super outfit for myself ;) great plan no??

Looking forward to more heart to hearts in the future!

Lots of Love,
A clearly non-stressed yet "Bride-to-be"