Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Welcome Again



A big hello to everyone, everywhere.

I have taken some time off from blogging, oh well not that I am into blogging every day and every hour. Even my posts that were usually once in a week or two have become once in month. I have every reason for my "slackness". Me and my whole family have been occupied with ceremonies that included my "Upanayanam" and my sister's wedding.

I was a shy person and always eluded myself from the whole relative fraternity right from my days as a kid. I entertained myself in solitude and admiring the nature whenever I visited them in their town. I would quickly venture out using a cycle and sit by a lake for hours before I came back to their place for dinner and some sleep. That way, the kind of impression I generated with them was more like an "obedient son who never spoke a word and always remained silent."

After a long time, we had a whole bandwagon of guests from all corners of the country and people whom I have met before, never met before and all kinds. Our house was filled with guests and a lot of noise made. Since I am in this gathering after a long while, I was enjoying every moment. I was also proud that we were hosting this entire fraternity at our place, entertaining them, taking care of their needs and also enabling subtle comforts. It was a proud moment for all of us (me, my parents and brother). This time I was more social and also inobedient at times, particularly towards the women folk. I didnt like their political agendas and also some section of the women crowd were hitting out at the lesser mortals with their superiority complex. I dont like this kind of an attitude which becomes contageous and makes some sensitive women step away from the gathering. Since it was our first ceremony at home and I didnt like the environment to be corrupted with ill feelings towards one another. If the situation demanded that I raise my voice, I would want to do that. I started off with this feeling. In a nut shell, the brain was pre-meditated to exhibit the other side of me. No sooner I started off with this attitude, it took me no time to make it public. I did it with utmost authority. It surely did have some consequences but I was happy that my attitude was directed at the right audience and the people most worthy of having a pleasant atmosphere were happy with it.

So this attitude of mine was some kind of a revealation to those people who thought I was still a shy and aloof person.

The point I am trying to make is there will always be people who would need constant attention, who always want to be obeyed, who always to stamp their authority, who always want to show their supremacy, who have an air of their elderliness and want to put their foot down on lesser mortals. This happens particularly in family gatherings (families who have a history of being very conservative and persuasive) and more particularly with the women folk. What it does is creates an atmosphere where people get divided into groups and start having their own agenda. The objectivity of hosting and making any ceremony succesful gets corrupted because of these groups, which is unwarranted. Our family wanted a sucvcesful event and by a mile it was a grand success.

Let me tell you the reasons why the event of my sister's wedding was a hit off. I must admire my sister for being very objective right from her childhood. She always knew what she wanted and she would go any mile to get it established with all positivity. At the same time she also has in mind what people around her would be ok with her decisiveness. She has all the freedom to do whatever she wanted, this was bestowed onto her by my parents who never raised any concerns with whatever she tried to do. As a kid she was extremely studious and always minded her busienss, which is to bury herself in books. She always topped the class, school, college and even the entrance exams. She was the one who bagged a rank of 127 with minimal coaching for the engineering entrance. She topped the JNTU with her engineering degree. Achievements of this magnitude always left my parents, not to intervene with her. My cousin put it like this about my sister and I echo the same feeling about her; which is " I sometimes feel belittled by the silent objectivity she shows just by result of her actions. It is rare to see such an individual in this day and age of temptations and faulty tribulations. She is the fruit of your mom & dad’s simplistic lifestyle without much selfishness."

I could not find any better words to express and thats why I chose to copy the feelings from my cousin.

She also chose her partner for life and by all counts we all are very impressed with the groom (hes a sweet guy to be with; although I regret not being able to spend too much time with him, I just wanted to leave the newly-weds alone) and their family. They all are very modest and down to earth people and subtle things made them extremely grateful and enjoy our hosting. More importantly this marriage was a "cross-cultural-conglomeration;" if I am allowed to put it this way. They come from Madurai and they have allowed us total freedom to perform the wedding with utmost focus on our traditions and customs. So we wanted to make it a memorable experience for everyone. Nowadays marriages are just click away. While the technologists boast of this feature, purists like us wanted to contradict it. Most marriages are over in a span of a couple of hours, we are proud that we did it over 48 hours. This was startling to most people. Some put it as, this is simply unaffordable. But all our family got together and erased the misconceptions that are concerned with this event. There was no conservationism when it came to spending for this event while considering where we could economize our means and still create an extravagant feeling.

Like all things end in a good way... the celebrations too slowly started to fade and the normalcy returned to our lives in terms of our daily livelihood and routine errands.

While my parents are away for the reception of my sister and Karthik (our newest member in the family) I wanted to write about this post.

I also have to worry about what my dinner could be in the evening and who would pop in to give us some company. Since my mom is away, we have to do the cooking ourselves....

More later....

Cheers!
Rajesh