Index of Journals
When I heard of the roka ceremony for Anu, I was like "do we also do that?"My mom called it "rokna" while talking to me and in Western countries, it is called engagement.
Yesterday it was decided that Anu and Tushar would exchange rings in the presence of the elders such as Tushar's tauji and cousins from Aligarh (I could be wrong about the place).
Anu wore a lemon colored saree and Tushar wore a dark green kurta and white pyjamas.
I was resting in my room in my bed due to the high caffeine intake yesterday. All of the required people had assembled in the living room and there were conversations about marriage, mother-in-law daughter-in-law relationship, and all.
A joke I remember from these conversations is from Anil Kumar fufaji. It goes like this:
Secret of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship is that daughter-in-law should daily touch mother-in-law's feet and mother should bless daughter by putting her hand on her head. If either one disobeys this secret, there would be fights.
Before the ceremony actually began or any roka related activity began, there was this period of silence which was not making me feel very comfortable. The way I sat on that chair without hand-rests was by bending forward with shoulders out and looking at my hands. I was restless and I knew that the posture would indicate the same thing to the people.
While writing about that moment I just happen to remember few more such moments of silence with other people at other times that I am going to share here:
1. We were in Amitabh's car. Asmita and myself. Amitabh was driving and we were returning from Elante mall (Sector 17, CHD) I think. It could be that it was some other eating place as we had come out for team outing that day. It was a party that Amitabh gave to the team for no reason as such, just an outing. Now we were going to drop Asmita at her place and there was this silent ride at night in Chandigarh. Then Amitabh broke the silence by saying: "Itna sannaataa kyon hai bhai?"That translates to "why it is so quiet, brother?". This is a famous dialogue from the 1975 Hindi movie Sholay.To respond to Amitabh, I said "people just say things that they want to say without meaning it, or without anyone listening to them and it all goes into air as if it never happened, as if saying it was no different from not saying it." To this Amitabh said, "you are right, we see people these days who are wasting away their lives in partying and drinking and in that alcohol influence they talk endlessly to ruin things not only for themselves but everyone."
2. There was this time when I again with my team but Amitabh was not there and I don't think even entire team was there. We were again at an eating place and it could be the Food Court. I was having this restlessness and temptation to speak and maybe it was also coming out in my body language that Kajal picked up. Seeing this she tells me that it is not mandatory that someone has to speak at all times when people come together. You can be quiet, at rest, at peace too.
3. It was on a call with a friend of mine Jayeta and after talking for 10-15 minutes there came a time when I was silent with her on the phone and then I spoke to ask "does my silence make you uncomfortable because that's how I am at a lot of times with a lot of people on a lot of calls". To this Jayeta replied something like "when two people become comfortable with the silence of each other that phase in the relationship is called "Thairaav". Thairaav is Hindi word for a very abstract and deep concept that I can try to put into English words. You may call it "stability" or "time when even the presence of other person comforts you", or more generally "when things have become slow and stable". Well, those were my three attempts to put the word across you.
~ ~ ~
The silence was also feeling awkward to me because Neelima maasi is a Kindergarten teacher and Priyanka is an HR.
While I write about the day of Roka after almost a year and a half, I would make little sense about the ceremony of roka itself. So what am saying here is absolutely like how I describe it to people. It is a vantage point, a view from my position.
In roka ceremony, the boy and his family are present at the girl's house. The girl's family does a tika to the boy. Tika means putting a mark on the forehead of the person with the crimson. Shape of tika varies if it is on boy or girl. For girl, it is like a circular spot and for boy, after you put a circular spot, you smudge it in the upward direction.
At the time of tika (crimson), there would be people clicking pictures so you would have to pose for them also.
After the tika (crimson), mom and I were to have a picture with the couple. Anu was on Tushar's left and I was on Anu's left. I asked her if I can bring my right arm around her from behind and hold her from the shoulder. She said 'no'.
All now I had to do was sit on the arm-rest, put my hands together with myself, smile and tilt my head in her direction to show some closeness between us.
Due to shortage of time at this moment on 23rd May 2021, I would try to wrap it up in few lines but I might write more if needed.
After the ceremony, we went to Haldiram's place in the Akshardham Temple's Parasvnath mall. There the catering service was not there. Accomodation for all the members of two families was not there. If accomodation could somehow be arraged, it was on separate tables and the manager said that we were not allowed to move the tables.
As for me, I did the catering work of bringing the food from the counter to the people sitting at their tables.
No shame in that. I had been part of Voice of Youth with Employee Relations team at my office and as being part of VoY, we were often required by the HR to help them organize events.
No comments:
Post a Comment