Going to a wedding!

We are all heading to Mangalore tonight to attend the wedding of my close cousin. Weddings mean different things to different people. For kids, weddings mean a chance to legitimately cut school (something Abhay is also excited about) unlimited supply of food, uninterrupted masti (fun) with cousins and a chance to forge new friendships that are soon forgotten once the wedding is over. The excitement probably peaks for the youth (especially for girls) when weddings are all about clothes, accessories, make-up and the perfect look! Of course, not to forget ….your own wedding which breezes past, leaving you with a blurred memory of the specific details that only seem to be captured by the camera! But your appetite for weddings completely dissipates as you enter a new phase of life – motherhood. My heart goes out to new moms who have weddings coming up, that can’t be missed! All of a sudden, your priorities undergo a sea change! It’s no longer about the events lined up, or meeting relatives, or the clothes and make-up but about the cleanliness and privacy of the guest rooms, availability of safe drinking water, hoping for good weather ( in our case, no rain!), company of other kids the same age as your little one and most importantly kid friendly food!:-)  

Anyway, since Abhay has never attended weddings like these before, I thought he needs a little prep for the daunting task ahead of me! I found “Going to a Wedding” by Rukmini Banerji and illustrated by Santosh Pujari, a Read India publication. I expected the book to be more about the experience of attending the wedding from a child’s perspective but instead, the book is more about the journey preceding the wedding. Anyway, a little girl is excited to be heading to her village for her uncle’s wedding along with her parents and her brother. That’s not all, they are joined by her grandfather and grandmother, uncle and aunt. As they reach the railway station, typically both the kids are hungry for food and typically their mom asks them to wait until they get on the train( Even Abhay noticed the same!). When the train finally arrives, they discover their groom-to-be uncle missing! So the confusion ensues as they try are about to board the train – a quintessential story of every Indian family heading for a wedding.....including our own!:-)