Wedding Bulletin #1

Talked to Bill after playing phone tag for the past 4 days. He says that his peaceful Bong household is in uproar. Parents are indulging in heavy amounts of emotional blackmail(things that you usually associate with my family) so that they can get him to wear the clown cap for the wedding. Apparently, he's lost all Bong culture because he refuses to wear all kinds of colorful threads that the priest wants him to wear. Needless to say, the fact that he's getting married to one of those uncivilized people from down South ain't helping matters. As of now, his only defense is that whatever he's lost, he hasn't lost more culture than his brother, so they ought to be happy. That the bro-in-law is away at school helps, I guess.

Meanwhile here at home, sari store salesmen love me. Who else chooses the wedding sari in under 11 minutes, they ask! Jewelry store people cannot seem to figure me out. They actually refuse to believe that I am the bride as I seem to be the most disinterested person in the store. I have decided that I am done with my jewelry store quota for this lifetime. I have better things to do with my time and your money, I have told my parents.

I am also discovering that there's more to the sari than meets the eye. I decided to wear saris for wedding and all the receptions as I thought its reasonably painless - there's no fitting and refitting and all that nonsense. But I completely forgot the blouse - getting them stitched and fitted is turning out to be a nightmare and it looks like my life revolves around the tailoring shop.

Good news of the day: Cousin K and I are on our way to big, evil jewelry store when my Dad calls. Apparently, he's running out of invites(1400 have gone out already) and wants to get 300 more printed asap. K calls the printer and sweet talks him into getting them printed on the same day. Two cops try to pull us over as they see K driving and talking on his cellphone. K doesn't stop but says that they would have broadcast the number and so he will get pulled over at the next big intersection. Right in front of the Thampanoor railway station, two other cops stop us. K pulls over and takes out his cellphone. Now Trivandrum is about who you know and lets just say that K knows enough people. He calls the AC and "explains the situation". He then tells the cops that the AC wants to talk to them. The two cops peacefully tell him that if the AC wants to talk to them, he would call them on their phone and slap K with a 1000 rupee fine. Long live Kerala Police!