When Valsa learnt Salsa!!!

The changing face of nuptials in Malayalee households in the recent times amazes me. Starting from the Pennukannal (Literally translated as ‘girl seeing’ even if you have been seeing the Girl long before this event.) to the Wedding reception has seen a major transformation over the years. The prosperous back in Kerala, by leading a life of absolute prudence in the Middle East, Gulf Malayalees get their sons and daughters married off in a show of pomp, splendour & one upmanship not to be undone by their compatriots north of the vindyas in patronising the big fat Indian ooops Malayalee or rather Nasrani wedding…

What follows will be a Nasrani’s account of a big fat Nasrani Wedding…a story line for Priyadarshan to try a remake in the lines of Monsoon wedding.

So when the pennukannal ceremony between 2 gulf malayalee families takes place more than the Kannal (Seeing part) there is a serious discussion on the ‘offer on hand’ between the elders or the so called karnavars (elders). And the discussions that take place between the future bride and the groom is in the lines of ‘do you know so and so’ from my church at the Indian school morning shift which was generally a girl’s shift. If the prospective groom replies in the positive then he is a flirt cos he knows a girl from the morning (girls) shift which is a rarity…If the girl is from the gulf and the guy from India then the first question the girl asks the boy is have you heard of KFC and Mc Donald’s the only 2 places where she has frequented. Its high time KFC and McDonalds consider Thiruvalla and Changanachery in their next business plan.

The run up to the wedding is all about going ahead with the procurement of distorted forms of aurum all set to adorn every possible curve on the bride’s body. So before the husband & wife become one in body and soul there is a major heavy (noble) metal influence on the bride’s body. The next is the silk worms finding their ways to the Mandarakodi (the wedding sari)…The number of silkworms is proportional to the number of years the bride’s father has spent in the Middle East eating kubbooos. Definitely a pale green wedding if you imagine all the shady green gold mining and silkworm cultivation going into the end products. There has been a conservative outlook on the wedding attire these days though a little too literally. There’s more cloth trailing the bridal wear with very little in the front. An interesting evidence of this you will find in this link vouched by none other than a person from the highest echelons of the ecumenical forum. Since it is in Malayalam, I wish to explain that it’s just a commentary on the new age wedding attires that can cause discomfort to even the men of God when they solemnise the wedding.

Capturing the occasion for a lifetime comes with a price…Out goes the traditional photographer whose forefathers spent hours in the dark room, the only place and time when the negatives develop to be positives in image and real life. These days you have the options from the descendents of the dark room developers to have fancy manipulated albums in digital formats (Digitally stretching the smile or extending the arm for the hug) and even with a couple shots of the bride and the groom, the photographers from Gods own country end up creating images of love and cosiness. Atleast these shots are on record to cherish, because the life of such scenes of cozying up with each other don’t go beyond a couple of hours of nuptial union. People hire elephants, horses and other exotic creatures to be part of their make- believe-hours captured digitally. Thank god the dinosaurs are extinct. All for a price… a price that is determined by the number of pages of the album at the rate of 1 K Indian rupees per page. A 40 page album which is the minimum number one can order costs 40 K INR.

The drive to the church for the bride and the groom is all enveloped in suspense…While the bride’s father flaunts his Dirham / Riyal / Dinar converted Indian rupees in the form of an hired Mercedes Benz, the groom if from India and not a NRI tries to do his best by pulling up at the church portico in a hammara Indian manufactured Maruthi Suzuki or max a rented Honda City…The bride goes one up on day one and there’s no stopping her…Cos the legend of the Mercedes Benz starts there and will haunt the groom to his grave…

So what about your title you may ask… Who in the world is Valsa??? The grooms these days are looking for malayalee girls who know salsa…Gone are the days when the girls were asked to sing a couple of ragas, these days they expect the bride to know salsa… In short the grooms these days are looking for the Valsas who know a thing or two about Salsa.

That’s exactly the moment when the homely Valsa from a nondescript village from Central Travancore learnt Salsa!!!

Back after a hiatus...

Culinary exploits took precedence over literary pursuits the last couple of months. Some mouth watering pictures of what I was upto over the last couple of weeks!!!

Prawn Balchao



Chicken Chettinad



Panner Jalfrezi



Dal

Midline Diastema in Vogue!!!

Its no disease that, its one of those nice sounding medical terms that is a recent entrant into the fashion world. Remember Anorexia Nervosa & Anorexia Bulimia they were doing the rounds on the fashion circuit for some time too.

The inspiration to write this piece were my dentures, every morning over the years as I brush my teeth, I cannot fail but notice my gap tooth and many a times sleepily pondered over ways to get them closed, probably a gold filling a la M N Nambiar, or a neatly cut Swarovski planted there, or at the very least simply fill the gap with some plaster from paris!!!

Picking up the day’s newspaper with coffee in hand and my tongue stuck between my famous dentures, I read an article which screamed Gap-tooth in vogue! It’s the new fashion statement!!! Viola!! In the hope that some part of my body was close to attaining designer status I continued reading the rest of the story and with each paragraph I was desperately trying to widen the gap with my tongue out of frustration. Unfortunately the male version of the gap tooth did not make it to the in-vogue status.

Until recently I was suffering from a phenomenon called midline diastema sharing my misfortune were singer Elton John, model Jessica Hart, stateswoman Condoleca Rice and porn star Belladona, already an impressive company to be in, I thought. Overnight the women from the group were catapulted into the league of aspiring super models and many are now trying to desperately widen the gap between their teeth. Guess you will soon get to hear more tongue in tooth replies replacing the tongue in cheek ones at beauty pageants and page 3 interviews…

Waiting for the day when receding hairlines and some extra fat around the waist instead of gelled / spiked hairdos and six packs will be in VOGUE too!!! Going by the new world order it might just happen sooner than we expect. Got to start really working on it!

Caned to be able.

Corporal punishment is what they call it these days…and they have banned it too. An unfortunate incident brought out of the closet this instrument of discipline.

I grew up at a time when the cane was part of the monthly grocery list and played a prominent part among the shopping list which included books and stationary at the beginning of an academic year. This was a ritual followed in most of the households of the time. Along with new textbooks, notebooks, pens, erasers and good old yellow coloured wooden scales you brought home a brand new cane which had a multicoloured plastic loop at one end to hang it on the wall.

But back home the cane had a very strategic location; it was placed right behind the portrait of Jesus Christ, the instrument of discipline placed behind the image of forgiveness. When I was up to any wrong doing I ended up looking at the image of Christ and my dad looked beyond or rather behind him to discipline me.

At school I also had some teachers who resorted to the so called corporal punishments and I distinctly remember one who followed the ritual of slowly pulling us back and forth using both our earlobes all the while explaining the ill effects of our wrong doings and at the same time looking for remorse in our eyes, and if we showed none, the back & forth movement ended in a slap on both the cheeks releasing the grip on our earlobes almost simultaneously, an act that needed excellent hand eye coordination and perfect timing. Let me tell you though we felt a little humiliated we did not nurture any hatred towards the teacher for long. The humiliation or the hatred element lasted only a few hours but the lessons we learnt stayed with us for the rest of our lives. We knew very well it was part of our grooming, a step in shaping us to face the world ahead.

Caning, impositions, kneeling, rap on the knuckles with the edge of a wooden scale were all common modes of punishment, corporal was a word we didn’t know then...These were just modes of punishments used to correct us, not abused to warrant a complaint.

I’m now a reasonably respectable citizen of the world thanks to my dad & teachers for having used the cane, sparingly though, to make me what I am today.

I’m happy I was caned to be able in the life ahead…