The Great Urban Indian Shadi: A Prequel (The Unwed Friend)

When Indian urban women marry, they buy tonnes of stuff... clothes for the trousseau, jewelery, utensils taking the top 3 spots. But the bride ain't the only one.

An important player in the game of spending money is the yet-unwed friend. Or her parents. Each bride has about 3 or 4 of these. There is great deliberation about just which saree to drape, or which lengha to wear... whether each of the decided sarees has a blouse on it - or should a new one be stitched? What kind of jewelery goes best with which of the decided garments... all that jazz. The beauty parlor is visited, and various bits of makeup are experimented with. Basically, a great deal of effort gets taken. the major reasons for this could be:

1. A threat on part of the bride that her friend "better look good".

2. An insistence about showing off their kid on part of one or more parental figures.

3. A desire on part of the girl herself to steal her ma's best saree, by wearing it and then staking a claim later.

4. The "you're next" theory: getting used to being a christmas tree.

After all this effort, one wonders what this young lady will be up to during the wedding. Well, most likely, she will spend a greater of her time playing second rung host, and running all over the freaking place (possibly faster than her her apparel will allow) to find people or things. When she is not doing that, she will be taking charge of the bride and all that is associated with her - getting her ready, giving her anything she needs, including moral support and comfort and helping her relax by giving her gossip on what's happening besides the wedding.

She ends the whole episode by wondering why she couldn't have been in jeans.. and so much more comfortable. Not like anyone was looking at her anyway! But she's got a few things out of it. Like ma's neatest saree.

And so forth marches the wedding season.

Hydra

The gigantic mythological monster gave its name to the tiny thing in the sea. but before the Greeks came up with concept of the Hydra came the biggest of them all - Life. Ever noticed the funny way life has of replacing every jhol thats resolved with another? Almost as if the new question rises from the fact that one has made peace with the earlier. And how when one reason to smile disappears, the smiles don't? They take time, but soon find a way out for some other reason.

May be, we should start celebrating new beginings and 'ringing in the new' when we experience these shifts too. From the old head of the hydra, to the new.
And more power to u!

I just wonder what happens when you manage to get rid of all the heads. Thats Nirvana, may be.