Movies that Would-be Brides Should Absolutely avoid!

The way my posts are going it might seem that I am borderline psychotic, but I can't help my random thought process, that's how it is! This thought just randomly came to my head, if there were any movies which psych out a woman before her day.. at that point there wasn't a clear winner, even now there isn't when I come to think of it. But there is a list that comes to mind:

The Runaway Bride - My absolute favourite, love Julia Roberts enough to be my sister. But right before the wedding, given that I'd be pretty close to a cuckoo cocktail any thing that gives the vaguest idea of this being reversible.. Hell No! Come to think of it.. How do "I" like my eggs?? (No pun intended! at all! Whatsoever! No seriously! )  and "May the gifts be returnable!" Really? You Wish!

My Best Friend's Wedding
I know it did work out in the end of that movie, but do you really want that kind of tension around your wedding? Do you?


So basically the entire bunch of movies where either the bride or the groom are in danger of eloping with someone else. Unnecessary drama, doesn't happen in real life.. So don't fret.. just stay away from them for a while.

Enough - The awesome movie where Jennifer Lopez kicked some serious ass, but why would you want to scare yourself right before your big day?
Provoked - Again a beautiful, immensely empowering movie, but right before the marriage?  HAPPY THOUGHTS.. HAPPY THOUGHTS!


Hmm I'm seeing a trend here, so why don't we avoid all these serious marital discord movies for some time so as to not get or give any crazy ideas.. Sounds like a plan? OK. Moving on..

Ek Thi Dayan - This one is for the boys, now that you've already chosen the one or shall I quote the truth, now that you have been "chosen". What good would it do you? Just like I said above..

HAPPY THOUGHTS..HAPPY THOUGHTS!

Pyaar Ka Punchnama - I remember I had watched this movie with my then boyfriend now fiancé and had stayed mad at him for a week I had taken that movie so personally! I mean really? Do all guys think women are the most evil things to happen to them? Really? Everything bad in your life happened because of the women in your life? Seriously? Ever heard of self control? Or better still thinking above the belt? Oh God!! See I'm getting angry again.. So hated that movie! Even the thought makes me mad! This is definitely THE MOVIE I need to avoid, or else God save him!

Kabhi Alvida Na kehna - It was a shitty movie anyway, why would you want to watch it? Just hated the whole premise of the movie. I'm personally against adultery for no obvious reason, but this one didn't even get that right!

Then you might also want to avoid the likes of A tale of two wives, murder, raaz, Ajnabee etc. they are real fun edge-of-the-seat movies but we don't want to work ourselves up for no reason right now.. Do we?

Hum Aapke Hain Kaun - Why not? Well.. Why would anybody else be more important than you on YOUR BIG DAY?? If it was up to me, I'd ask all the other girls to attend my wedding without any makeup :P (So I look my best :D .. Yeah.. If can't move up I'll drag everyone else down!!)

Hum Saath Saath Hain - Face it! You will never be as cultured or loving as the entire Barjatya dream clan. And a word of advice DO NOT even as much as mention it to the mother-in-laws. They might start expecting you to become the Aadarsh bahu and wake you up at 4 everyday to worship the Tusli. In case you already do so.. Good for you :)

Vivaah - Because by the time it ends you might have missed your own wedding :P

Main Prem Ki Diwani Hun - Getting married or not.. Just DON'T!
Oh my God! Do I see an anti-rajshree sentiment in my list? Wasn't intentional at all! But there has to be some explanation why it isn't around anymore.. I may have explained it!

Anyway, we are approaching the day when for once you (or I :P) would be the star of the day!! So Yay!! :D

Can't wait to (not) see you at ..

I just listed!

P.S.: The list was easy, uploading the posters not so much!! Took me a week just to get them to fit right! 

And now I'm officially out of flashback!

So with the trip covered.. I'm officially done with the historical timeline. I don't need to lay anymore context. For those who're thinking there was no need for any from the very beginning.. True.. But then I had started writing and just couldn't stop until it was all out there :D and the story was long enough to last me month!!

Now with the facts done, I can with a very content hear move on to fiction, two of which I have already initiated. Yup two, simultaneously, can I multitask or what! Now please don't say what :P

Finally free from chronology,

The Trip!

As is imperative, a girl must know what she's getting married into...albeit not as an after thought like I did, but as a preliminary background check :) but then if I did it the normal way how would I be me (Which in case you are wondering is almost synonymous with being mad :P) then? But the bottomline is that the day when I visit his home-town finally did arrive!!

Any guesses about who was the most excited about going to Kolkata? I know the obvious answer is me.. but then you hardly know me if you thought so! It was my Dear Daddy! No kidding!! Heard it umpteen times so will repeat it as is.. "Last I saw Calcutta in 72, when I was 20 years old.. And now I get to go again! It'll be so much fun!" And all the different ways he could frame the sentence.. he did! And then he told all of his friends, all whoever needed to know, and the ones who did not need to know, all of them! that's when I understood why facebook came up with the geo-tagging option, had my dad been on FB that would have been the first thing he would have done: Checked himself in! But jokes aside.. I was so proud of my papa for his exemplary display of good behaviour :). For the uninitiated, to the people who don't know me.. I come across as very rude, maybe sometimes who know me would also agree to this :P. But then I have a very plausible and undeniable explanation to it: It's Genetic! I get it from my father (Maybe my mother too, in a different kind of way, but mostly I'm sure it's him). It's not that he means to be rude, but he's by far the most politically incorrect person I've known, and he has no clue about it. He has the knack of saying the most inappropriate things at the most inopportune times! So you can only guess a North Indian Papa going to meet his daughter's Bong In-Laws, it was a recipe for disaster! How much stress would it have caused the daughter! You can't ask somebody not to do something he's not even aware of.. I only prayed there would be no obvious situation for a regionalist (racist does not fit here for obvious reasons :P ) comment.

I love train rides, they are always fun. No reason why, I just do! It is an overnight journey from Delhi to Kolkata so most of the journey passes while you are asleep and the remainder can be filled by eating :-) or if you are not that fond of eating or sleeping (I can't however imagine how that's possible though!!) you could strike a friendship with a co-passenger or gaze at the awesome landscapes passing by. I think no one would ask why I like train rides, I've dedicated an entire paragraph explaining why I do!

Like always I digressed.. This post wasn't about how much I love train rides or why I'm generally rude, but about my first trip to my sasural! We were supposed to reach Kolkata at about 12 in the afternoon, the train was an hour late and I had been giving almost regular updates about my location to my dear boy. Still he reached the station at 10 30 to receive us, so excited he was that I was coming ( Aww :-) Later MIL told me he had been up since 6 because he had to pick me up from the station and he didn't want to be late.. he didn't have breakfast as he thought that might cause delay.. Am I lucky or he's just too eager :P Either way I'm not complaining :) ) By the time we got out of the station it was already beyond 2 and there he was all drained out of heat (even in November!!) waiting for us at the station to guide us home. And then I set foot on to the city that would be my new home (Well..only figuratively speaking.. but it has a better impact :P) I'm not exaggerating here, but I instantly fell in love with it! I'd be honest again, I didn't expect to :P .. a lot of people had given me some pretty bad reviews about the place, but then there were some (No points for guessing one of them ;)) who had awesome things to say too. 

As short ride later we were in front of the house that would I was looking at the first of the many many times to come...Minor butterflies in the stomach moment that was.. And waiting to greet us with awesome food (Never ever will the food not get the importance it deserves.. No matter how important the event surrounding it is. Period.) was my dear MIL and Mami MIL :D . After a very warm yet brief welcome, I went to freshen up, and then I had the most awesome prawns (Yum.. Yum.. and from that point forth my dad was officially #lovingit).

Before I met Sid I used to think I talk too much.. It's been four years now and I wonder how could I have ever thought so! Similarly before I met his mom I used to think I'm impatient, but boy! was I mistaken! So when this plan was being laid down, his mom did suggest she wanted me to meet the family, I didn't know she meant as soon as we set foot! So as I already told you Mami MIL was already waiting for us. Then just as we finished lunch his cousin sister arrived. And a few minutes later two of his other Mamas did, within an hour my marriage date was set, another 20 the reception date, the next half an hour my MIL wanted to get the banquet hall for the reception booked too! At that point I think someone suggested that it's alright to go in the morning, as they don't work 24X7! All this and I was thinking.. Oh No! I should have worn the sari (I got to wear) today.. (Oh amazing story behind that too.. but then it's alright, I've already hogged too much airtime..) now I won't get to wear it on this trip :(.. I seriously so lack focus that I irritate myself sometimes don't even want to know what happens to the people witnessing it in third person!

That's how eventful my first day in the in-law city was! Day 2 was city tour as is necessary for every first time tourist! Where his dad took us to all the must visit places and my dad was the proper tourist wide eyed and ever inquisitive, top on my list the Victoria Memorial. But the highlight of the trip was day 3.. as that was the day we had to shop! 

So I had been told by multiple people that Calcutta is super cheap especially for bridal shopping and I had expressed this desire to buy my bridal lehenga from bada bazar (that's the Chandini chowk of Kolkata for the uninitiated). My MIL confessed to not being very well versed with the bridal places in Kolkata, so enter Mami MIL 2, so Mami MIL 2 said "Oh lehenga you want let's go check out Sabyasachi, his bridal store is enroute." Now here it's important to know that bridal lehengas are not a very Bong thing so even though they are aware that dear Sabya is a famous designer from their very own city they didn't have the slightest clue that his pricing model didn't really fit my idea of cheap. No amount of convincing the MILs works, so off we set out to find the store. I have to give this to Sabyasachi though, he doesn't believe in wasting any money, the bridal store is in the middle of an almost industrial area where there are no roads, the potholes broke the axle of our car, and when we got to the exact address we didn't know where the main entrance was because what we saw sure looked like a backdoor exit in case of fire! Inside was even more awesome, no extravagance on furniture. Why waste wood when you could just cement seats in.. right? I believe the idea is to focus only on the clothes, but that was so hard to do with no lighting around. Anyway, whatever I could make out from the lighting there was, was absolutely brilliant and princess like, I mean what else could it be? But then I was dreading the moment when the MILs would ask the price. No surprises.. it did come pretty quick. We were in and out of the store in less than 10 minutes! But it does make a fun anecdote don't you think? Yeah... 

And then we went on and got down to some real shopping! So we head on Gariya Haat where my new family generally shops, and there we buy a sari for me and my mommy :) But trust me I tell the truth, it was also done in less than half an hour.. it goes without saying we had men in the group of shoppers.. and as I mentioned above I was proud of my dad's exemplary behavior... so it had to be the other man who was ruining my shopping experience.. Yes the one I'm going to marry! Huh! Such sweet people his family's women are and such a useless company for shopping he himself is. We also had our first fight in the In-law city and it was due to his unwarranted sarcasm over my shopping. No prizes for guessing who won ;). But that day I covered all the haats in Kolkata and went back with only 3 saris and a clutch. And it wasn't that I didn't like the stuff there or anything, but because it was the first time I was shopping with someone other than my mom (I was missing my mommy even though she was only a few feet away :( ) Also, then anything I as much as picked up my MIL wanted to buy it for me! Man! Never felt so pampered in my life! And yet.. I couldn't buy the whole store could I? And also there was this time constraint and a very annoying tag along who just wouldn't stop making snide remarks. Remind me why I'm marrying him again? :P Yeah.. 'coz I love him!

Also I forgot to mention, I did experience how cheap Calcutta really is, when I got that one chance to eat street food (so what if it was in New market!). I had a chicken roll for 30 bucks!! I couldn't believe it! A chicken roll.. with real chicken!! 30 rupees!! And it was so super awesome!! But that was the only street food I ate :( as my MIL doesn't trust street food, I was getting the stink eye when I was having the chicken roll. But I didn't care, I had my chicken roll for company, and I was happy! :D

It was as if time just flew.. It was only 3 days after all.. how much could I pack in them? And it was already time to head back home. Soon you shall be my second home :)

Photo from: http://www.alamohelicoptertours.com/stacyriggsphotography/index.htm

Oh by the way, I did wear the sari :) Last day before we left for the station. I tied it all on my own (So Proud!) The whole house was happy and so was I :D

And All the Rest!!

Inside my heart heart I'm almost sure I suffer from ADHD ..

Why You think? Even before I could finish the above sentence, I switched tabs to search up the disease and get full clarity but got stuck at faking news.. some joke about FB addiction laughed switched to FB stalked a few people (my favorite pass time :D) and then suddenly remembered I had a blog to start!! And now back to the original search I had to make .. Be back in a bit!! (Don't hold your breath about it though!! I wont be responsible in case you die breathless blue :P )

I'm Back :) And found out that ADHD is not just for kids.. Ha! And while I was at it.. figured out an awesome way to learn Bengali as well.. which would pretty soon be replaced by another Alok Nath joke in my mind, they're so funny!!

Oh ya!! These posts have to have something about marriage or the process na? So this one is primarily going to wrap up the entire prelude because frankly 5 really really long essays is way too much footage even for me!!

In retrospect meeting the parents was not as scary as it's made in the movies, definitely no bloodshed that I witnessed!! And he didn't have to prove his worth by earning Dus Hajar rupye all by manual labour either :P (That would have been fun to watch though!!) Once we all got to know each other it was pretty much a smooth ride.

Except for one minor glitch.. my Mom's late realization that she must match our horoscopes.. major horror that created! That was the only time my dad and I agreed on something, that we needed damage control and quick! It's not that I don't believe in destiny or I'm an atheist.. It's just that I don't believe that anybody can predict it with 100% accuracy.. I'm an analyst building risk models day-in and day-out with far more credible information than the date, time and place of birth and I can still only be partially sure if someone's going bust. How can the pandit ji know for sure? His models were built hundreds of years ago and they haven't even been refreshed since.. Hard to beat?? The Logic.. Isn't it?? ;)

Anyway my Mum didn't buy it... she had almost spilled it across to the In-Laws, but it was curtailed in time. How? Second Opinion ;) So the first astrologist had said some pretty nasty stuff and said it would cost big bucks to do away the "Dosh". I was like.. Yeah! Really? From the word go that guy didn't appeal to me one bit! Same as with doctors the guy who writes the most tests is the one you should trust the least (Isn't this an educational blog? I give you such worldly wise advice :D). So we found like three or four more, they all were like it's alright who cares about these things anyways these days ( At this point I would neither confirm nor deny any interference by the vested party :) ) It was only then when the catastrophe was averted! And breathed free!

That really was one happening week! But that was only my mom having her bride's mom's stress moments.. Aah.. now here's an idea! Me being totally useless at being the stressed bride, my mom has got the stress aspect totally covered, she should write something for all the mothers having a daughter like me.. doing no work passing on the responsibilities and then claiming to not feel like a bride!! I'm such a mean person for pulling this on her am I not?

With the "horror"scope settled, we now needed an opportune date for the marriage, that required a lot of clearing calendars, ours, theirs and God's :)... so a lot of back and forth! All this happened more or less in the background.. mostly over the phone. Language may be called the barrier here.. yes my in-laws know both Hindi and English, but not as a first language, they are most comfortable in Bong. So even though they can talk sense in hindi, the essence is lost on us. And we are pretty hindi people :D .. translating emotions to English is equally tricky for my parents.. It does become a problem when you are trying to gauge their preference towards something or asking involved questions. So my parents decided we needed to do this face to face.
 And that's when the Calcutta trip happened! Amazing fun that was :) Almost felt like a celebrity :P.

Hmm.. now to think of it.. I think it will not be fair to wrap it up in this one post. Setting foot in my sasural deserves a separate post :)

Till I find a better title..
Live with this :)

Meet the Parents!

I like going chronologically.. so even though I have witnessed my first bridal stress moment.. I will have to wait it out until I've finished the whole prelude.. Darn it!

Anyway, lets move on shall we? So picking up from where we left off in the last post. He finally convinced his parents to meet me. Mind you meeting his parents was the most crucial part of the entire exercise, as they were the only two people who had been (very conveniently) kept in isolation by somebody I know :P. Also, given that the ground work was not so great (I'm not blaming anyone here :D) the onus was entirely on me (How very modest I am :D)!!

There were a lot of things that were working for me that day (NOT!), below are a few examples:
1. For some reason that I can't recall, my Mom wasn't talking to me, so I had no help in picking the clothes to wear.
2. My dear Boy had tried to give me some tips on how to dress up, which really did add to the the complication. How you ask? Well.. Even though I didn't know what to wear I was absolutely sure whatever he was saying was definitely not to be worn.
3. It was a working day, so I had to cut office and meet them. ( Don't really know if it was a plus or a minus :P )
4. The image that had been painted in front of me was .. err.. how do I put it .. a little hard to impress.
5. This goes without saying right, I really needed this to work!!

Given that I was on my own primarily for the dress and make-up, I decided to wear the most Indian outfit I have ( Yup the oldest trick in the book ;) ), a quick plea to my dear God and I was ready to face the day.
My work day begins in the afternoon, so it was more or less decided that we would meet for tea. I was kind of between teams at that point, so it was relatively easy for me to slide off without getting noticed. Oh yeah.. before that, the first thing he says when he looks at me.. "Couldn't you have worn something simpler? This looks too fancy!" And at this point it becomes imperative that I tell you that I was wearing a solid black color churidar and a mustard yellow kurti (again one color) with absolutely no bling on it whatsoever. At that point gave myself a virtual pat on the back for not following his suggestions, for he would surely made me look like a monkey in a potato sack :P.

His house is 15 minutes away from the office, all this way he was trying to convince me to touch his parents feet as he also does it every time he meets my parents :P. So we finally reach, nervous as I was I did not forget to touch the feet. The moment the door opened, I dashed towards my would be Mom in Law's feet ( No matter how much a pretend to be cool and all, I did want to impress you know :P). The apparent newbie behaviour was not noticed, thank God for that! So now we're all seated and the awkward silence begins :D.

To be very frank I don't really remember the conversations we had, but they were mostly non consequential. But the subliminal messages, that's what we should be talking about! His Mom sat right next to me, I'm pretty sure that wasn't intentional as the furniture arrangement was such that there was no other way to sit. Even so, I could feel myself be inspected (very closely), that was nerve wrecking!

And then there was the food! I tell you me being this ultimate glutton will be my wrong doing some day. This is my personal advice to everyone out there, when out to do something important, do not stuff your mouth with food! His mom had made this awesome tasting kheer. This was the second time in my life I tasted such kheer, first time was made by one of my friend's Mom.. it was so awesome that it led to a fight which could have jeopardized our friendship.. that was the last day I tasted that awesome Kheer :( .. For my friend said she didn't approve of the way we had become around the kheer.. Sigh!! So where was I? Oh ya.. the Kheer, so my MIL ( I can call her that now.. can't I?) gave me this huge bowl of Kheer to eat, if I had been a normal right thinking girl I would have asked for a smaller serving.. but did I? Nooo... for two reasons
1. I didn't want to seem rude, being very honest I was damned if did and damned if I didn't
2. I just love kheer!!!

This reminds of a similar incident that happened to me during one of my viva sessions while in school. I still remember it vividly, the worst viva ever! What's the connection? Well here it is: So when I sat down in front of the examiner, he offered me a cookie, like an idiot I accepted it and happily started eating it and then my viva started, I had the very dry cookie inside my mouth which wouldn't slide down and I for sure couldn't spit it out! So what do I do? I steal the examiner's water too!! Gulp down the cookie and then tell him I don't know the answer..

Coming back to the situation at hand. And as it will be apparent I never learn. Now here I am me and the Kheer, the most awesome ever since that kheer I mentioned (mental note: Must learn how to make it!) and then came the problem.. the awkward silence was broken! Now they wanted to talk, ask questions like Where are you originally from, what do your parents do and stuff ( All of the answers were known of course.. just filling the silence type of questions) the only problem was.. my mouth was stuffed with kheer! Anyway, the kheer was easier to swallow though :) .. and then my MIL thought I needed to fed something else too ( I wasn't even halfway through the kheer bowl by that time) so she got me paneer pakoras (another favorite!!). The important thing to be mentioned here is that I was the only one of the four people in the room who was eating, everybody else was just watching me eat! Somebody a little less in love with food would have realised it, but I did not! Anyway the time was less and there was food to be finished and talks also happening alongside. Anyway it was just then when my MIL asked me to chuck the food and accompany her to another room. With a heavy heart I bid farewell to the kheer, there in that room she gave me my first gift! A really pretty clutch bag. And then she had that much dreaded heart to heart with me, you know the usual, my son is a simple kid, keep him happy and stuff <Awkward!! .. but I managed nonetheless>. With this done the meet was complete!

Sid reminded them that we had been missing from office for quite some time and now we needed to head back ( I just love my office!!) So I say bye to MIL, FIL and that awesome unfinished bowl of kheer and leave for office. ON my way back home, I asked him, "How did I do?" He said, "They looked more nervous than you did!!" Ha ha! Can't help it I'm a natural! I would have to wait till the next day for feedback, but I had already began to miss the Kheer!

When I got home, my mom was now not so angry I think she was also excited to know about how the meet went! So I told her how it went and showed her the gift :) She was happy and I was happier that she was mad at me no more!!

True there was a lot of awkwardness, but that went both ways did it not? Both for me and his parents? From what I saw in retrospect, I wasn't the only one who wanted to impress. When I look back at it now I think I can summarize it in this very simple paraphrase : "The things we do for the ones we love!"

This post took me a week to finish, I have no clue how and why! Had started in 2013 and now here we are my first post for the year I get married. 2014.. Yay!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!!