Shaadi season

Yes, It's that time of the year again. The time when the drawer is full of wedding invitations of relatives whose names you've never heard of. The time when you get the opportunity to witness the level of intellect and double standards present within our society. The time when you return home at 2 am, eager to take a seat on the commode only to pass out burning liquids. It's 'Shaadi' time.

This festive season kicked of with my cousins engagement where I heard a song whose lyrics roughly translated to:

'The groom is wondering how the bride will be' (because he hasn't actually ever seen the bride).
'Tell him the bride is like a piece of gold' (because women are shiny material objects, gifts of sorts).
'Whichever house she goes to, she'll make that house a piece of heaven' (God forbid she ever wishes to step outside that piece of heaven without the company of a male relative).

I think about how I sat quietly through the song and I'm impressed at my display of patience and maturity. My usual self would have either kicked the speakers till they became unable to play this damned song ever again or burst out laughing finding such ridiculous lyrics hard to believe in. But I realize that I must stay calm and maintain a certain level of discipline and continue to wear the fake smile on my face as I shake hands with relatives, whose faces I remember only vaguely, as though it's a great pleasure to meet them again. 

Despite the ghastly Parathas that have resulted in me spending a great number of hours each day in the washroom passing out God knows what, I've made it through the bulk of the season. I had an interesting discussion with my family the other night on our way to a 'Baraat.' The groom was a son of a close friend of my fathers and we were following the grooms car to a wedding hall. I'm not quite familiar with the customs of each function and I don't really care but in order to remove the awkward silence that persisted in the car, I decided to question my mother on the topic. She told me that during a 'Baraat' the 'lerkay wale' (friends and family members of the groom) go to pick up the bride and bring her home. I question 'Why can't the bride take the groom home,' and the car bursts into laughter and I sit there, puzzled, unable to understand the humor in my last statement. My mother jokingly asks if that's what I want for my wedding. I reply with a 'Why not?' and the whole car is perplexed by what I'm saying and alas, awkward silence continues till we arrive at the wedding.

I don't understand desi weddings. They seem so sexist, defining the roles of man and wife before they even meet. I'm not going to say they are very hetero-normative (even though they are; I can only imagine the confusion a gay couple would go through if they were have a desi wedding) because I understand that our society simply isn't there yet but to learn that our society isn't even willing to treat husband and wife equally is disheartening, if not infuriating.

My older brother doesn't want to get married anytime in the near future and although I understand, my mother seems almost unwilling to accept this reality. She tries time and time again to convince him to get married and after he refuses she jokes and says that one day, she'll pretend like she's taking him to a relatives wedding, but it'll actually be his wedding. For his sake, and for our societies sake, I hope she is in fact joking.