Marriages and ulterior motives

Last year, early December we did been to Kerala. My granny was yearning to see the peapod. The jellybean had met all the grannies, grandpas and innumerable uncles and aunts even before she was 1.She was quite a traveler until she joined us. On every call my granny kept urging me to visit her with the peapod. Every time we want to visit Kerala, mom is always talking about who is getting married next. I did not understand this “waiting-for-a-marriage-to-go-to-kerala” concept very well. You want to meet Ammachy, just go I would say. You want to meet your Aunt, just go. To mom & my aunts, marriage is a very convenient way to meet all our relatives spanned over 3-4 generations and geographically all over Kerala. They can meet almost everybody and they need not sit, plan and execute plans for each day in each direction. That is “ek thir se do nishaan”. To me this sounded all cheap money-saving-plans.

For the last wedding in the family 2 years ago, we were specially asked what dates would suit us, Is November better or December and after managing to raise our cell phone bills to an all-time high by just calling each other, planning the travel & shopping, we had to let it go, thanks to last minutes changes in the project and team structures. One down, now for the next trip we are waiting for the next one to get married and he didn’t seem remotely interested. There were holidays and annual leave to be planned around it and someone didn’t give a damn. All he cared was about himself. As Christmas holidays started approaching, all frantic relatives, suddenly very curious and caring have been wanting to know what are the parents actually doing. The parents were given a good dose about how they aren’t really doing their job well. He is an intelligent, good looking, kind & a responsible guy. He has managed to creep into every one’s good list, including mine where he has no company yet. By December, I realized there was no marriage on the horizon before the year ends. We quickly, planned & booked odd day flights way before the holiday season started to the native land. We flew cheap but it turned out to be a very expensive trip. The only consolation is the sweet caring wrinkled happy face of my granny and the hubby’s granny when they saw us. We were there for a week, every night a new home. We even traveled in the KSRTC buses with the peapod. She was really no trouble with all the new faces or new places or the crowd and rush surprising us. Touchwood. The cows and hens and goats kept my little city baby mesmerized. She was seeing all of them from such close quarters for the first time. She also loved playing in the sand and pebbles in the front yard and walking through the rubber plantation. It was a little hectic with the kind of time we had and the number of places and people we thought we must meet.

Now we agree to the concept of planning leaves around marriages or such ceremony. A cousin is getting married in Kerala this month but we can not go since both hubby & myself can not afford any leaves. The consolation is, oh we can all go for B’s wedding.
And I really hope we can go for some family wedding in Kerala and meet all those we couldn’t meet in the 1-week marathon holiday. Its not considered cheep anymore, just practical. Other than the fact that this is cheaper since it saves you all that taxi fares, but it also saves you a lot of time, that you can spend simply sitting beside your granny and listening to the story of your four fathers……for the 15th time the same day.