Great Indian Wedding Time again

One of my very first blogs were on the Great Indian Wedding... the media going crazy with it, the whole world conspring to look like one huge marriage party. Little has changed in the two years since, and now at the end of 2009, wedding season is here again!
Lets start- prices of gold are daily news now. We thought they had touched the roof when I got married in 2005. Celebrating our 4th anniversary this month, my husband thought it more prudent to gift me the new refridgerator Ive been nagging him last few months for.
Magazines- Vogue had a wedding special in November, Marie Claire beat it by a month, their wedding issue came out in October. Elle had a wedding supplement, last one I saw was the Cosmopolitan, with its own wedding issue! Weddings sell, then. Some of us are getting married, some of us are waiting to be proposed to with everyting crossed, some of us are having family getting maried, and some of us have to buy expensive presents for those getting married.
Well there are also people like me who are just voyeurs... who love to peek into the lives of the rich and/or famous, and gasp at the thought of buying a 1 lakh lehenga, or the diamond set that so and so would wear, or the farmhouse that so and so's daddy would rent for darling princess.
I guess Ill never buy either the Judith Lieber purse recommended with the Manish Malhotra lehenga, or the Louboutin heels which perfectly goes with the traditional churas. And I cant think of anyone who can either. Who are these magazines targeting anyway. What is their readership? How many people care for Moroccan or English rose themes for their wedding in India?
I do not know, but I know this. When I got married, all I wanted was two Benarasi sarees in nice colours which I would be able to wear all my life and pass on to my daughter, if I had one. I wanted my mom's lovely necklace I had coveted since I was a little girl. I wanted everyone to love the food. And I wanted to get done with it and start the rest of my life. To have the family circus end and get to be a couple once again.
Well all that is ancient history now. Now Im a little scared of weddings. Im scared that my present wont be good enough. Im scared of not getting parking space near the venue and having to walk a kilometer in my sky high heels and saree. Im scared of not being blinged up enough. Im scared of having a stomach upset afterwards. And Im scared of hearing about who next is getting married. Best of luck guys... Ill send you all my blessings and heart full of love, but just keep me out of it.

Oh, for a story to tell!

Heard of the book "The Rozabal Line"? One in the series of fiction based on 'research' that shows Jesus spent a considerable part of his life in India, Kashmir specifically.

The author, Ashwin Sanghi (pseudonym Shawn Haigins) is an Indian businessman who writes part time. An immense amount of research has gone into the book, 90% of it google searches. (All the links are provided in the glossary.) As I read the book I keep thinking what a person like Dan Brown would have done with this material, or John Grisham, or Ken Follet for that matter. For the material is mind blowing, stuff that best sellers are made of, but the writing swings madly back and forth from BC something to AD 2012. And when I say swings madly back and forth, believe you me, you will be left with a headache at the pendulous madness.

But anyway, Mr Sanghi wrote a book. He probably spent years deciding just what he wanted to google and then made a story out of it. I wish I could tell a story, any story! I do not want to be a poet, nor can I even succeed in it. A poet can see the whole beach in a grain of sand. Me? I see the setting sun and I think- poached eggs.

No, not for me the blank verses and rhymed couplets. I would rather be a story teller. How fortunate are they, how blessed, those who can spin yarns, those who can pluck stories out of co passengers travelling in trains or lonely warehouses on the waterfront. I suppose life itself is full of stories, one has just to look at the right places.

How i wish I had that imagination, to make young boys and girls fly on broomsticks to play ball, or make trees walk and wage wars, to tell the world about a teacher in Afghanistan, or a tribe elder in the African jungles... oh but I cant, I cant. I just cant tell a story.