The 'Just Married, Please Excuse' Contest

Since yesterday when I bumped into this contest by Yashodhara whose debut book has been launched recently, my blogging fingers itched to jot down few of the weird moments of our married life. Also, how can I not mention the highlighted words which caught my attention like “Mamagato”, “Gurgaon”, “free copies of book” and gave me a bleak hope that being a blogger from Gurgaon might act as an added advantage in my favour. (errr kidding….huh! :-))

As I go through Yashodhara’s blog and keep reading her previous posts, I regret why I have not been at her space earlier….Anyway, better late than never!

So here I try to recap few incidents related to our marriage and just after that.

Our marriage ceremony was packed with ‘comedy of errors & misunderstandings’. All Baraatis dispersed & went back home leaving few young cousins and an aunt of SG behind even before the completion of marriage rituals due to some stupid misunderstandings. The groom side priest took advantage of the situation and left hastily after them citing some weird excuses without completing all the important rituals….like Saptapadi or Saat pheras was skipped completely!!

In the midst of all these confusions, while my side priest was conducting the ritual of ‘Sampradan /Kanyadaan’, another funny incident happened which we noticed only when the video recordings were seen later.  SG’s knowledge of Bengali language is quite limited…while he can speak it mixed with a perfect north Indian accent, he, kind of struggles and gets confused if somebody speaks in fluent Bengali. So we saw in the video that SG was trying hard to follow instructions from our priest about when to repeat the ‘shlokas/mantras’, when to fold hands and so on. When the priest asked my dad to repeat after him the mantras of Kanyadaan, he also instructed SG to keep his hand on mine. GOD only knows  what SG understood & the next thing we saw him repeating the mantras of ‘Kanyadaan’ after the priest. So, in case we take all these rituals seriously( I generally don’t..!) it indicates that my dad performed my ‘Kanyadaan’  to SG and the ‘SG’ did my ‘Kanyadaan’ to GOD knows whom!!

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This second incident falls completely in the category of ‘Just married’ if in case the first one fails to make the entry because of the fact that we were still not ‘completely’ married then.

At the time of my ‘Grihapravesh’ in SG’s house, we had a seriously stupid ritual where I (bride) had to hold a ‘live’ fish kept in a bowl of water with my hand for couple of minutes!!! 

Here I should mention that I am a scaredy cat....I am very scared of any living being (except human) on this earth. Forget about dogs or cats, I cannot even run fingers through furry coat of a cute rabbit or birds or even pat an innocent cow. A mouse or mole in vicinity can bring out the most ‘versatile’ dance out of me!!! 

Anyway, I digress. Now, when I had to hold that slimy moving fish I was petrified. Being a new bride, I was even not able to refuse to participate in it outright. I tried to put my best brave face forward, but, the very moment my fingers touched that fish which wriggled away splashing water, all my acting skills botched. I shrieked, jumped, shouted and people even witnessed that ‘versatile’ dance by me duly applauded by my perfect hubby in the background!!

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The third incident happened just few days after my marriage when relatives had dwindled back to their home and we were just enjoying our marriage vacation at my in-laws place.

One evening I wanted to eat Momos, but in that city we don't get roadside stalls to buy  momos easily like we get in Delhi NCR. I thought of bugging SG about it and also test his ‘hubby skills’ to fulfill wife’s abrupt demands.

As SG was in FIL’s shop that time so that my FIL can take some rest I tried calling him on his cell phone. When I realized that he has forgotten his mobile phone in his room, I called on the landline number.

(The conversation happened in Hindi)

Me: Hello, Ghosh!! (Yes, I used to call him with his last name)

Other side:  Haan..Kaun? (Yes.. who is this?)              

Me: Sun na….Yahan Momos milta hai kya?? (Listen…Do we get Momos here?)

Other side: Kya…kya chahiye ?? ( What…What do you want?)          

Me: Arre…Momos !!! yahan pe momos kahan milega!! ( Momos!!!....Where can we get Momos here!)

Other side: Jee…ye to hamari dukan me nahin milega…aap kahin aur pata kar lijiye. (This is not available in our shop…you enquire somewhere else.)

Me: ????

Then suddenly I realized that it was my FIL’s voice which I mistaken for SG. And how can I forget that SG is not the only ‘Ghosh’ here but I am surrounded by the whole ‘Ghosh’ clan.  I hurriedly hung up and cursed my stupidity for this ’face-palm’ moment!! When SG came to know about it…..like a perfect hubby, he shared it with everyone in the family embarrassing me to the core.

While writing this post, I felt that walking down this specific memory lane is quite fun. Thanks to this contest for letting me revive this enjoyment.