The 'Baraati' Problem

Raju Srivastava (The Great Indian Laughter Champions) did a great one on baraatis. How they misbehave and what the girl's family has to go through. Brought back memories of 2 instances I had seen.

The first was in Mohuadi's wedding (our family friends for the last 45 odd years). Shanuda's folks had come from Asansol and were slightly late. In our weddings, generally the first dinner batch is for elderly people or for people who have to travel long distances. Someone told Mashi that these guys have come shouldn't we sit them first? She replied that they are late, let them wait. This was overheard by one of them who promptly squealed to Shanuda's dad who huffed and puffed and started a walk out. We were flabbergasted. Requests by a couple of uncles fell on deaf ears and it seemed that a lot of dinner will be wasted. Lu uncle came to the rescue. He prostrated himself on the father's feet and asked for forgiveness and the latter regally forgave us. After everything was over, a very emotional Jethu (mohuadi's dad) thanked Lu uncle for what he had done. Lu uncle shrugged and this was no big deal, it happens in every marriage in the south.

The second one was Munia's (Sr) wedding. That was the time of Sooraj Barjatiya and people in Kolkata were learning about stealing shoes and 'cher-charing' saalis. One 15-16 yr old kid started hanky panky with one of my cousins. I caught him by the ear and asked him what's going on. He rushed off to tell his father, probably thinking gleefully that he will be able to start a major fight or hoohah, ala bollywood. Imagine his frustration when his father came and asked me what the matter was and on learning the truth gave him an earful!!

The maximum baraati problem I have heard of in Bengali weddings is people acting smart at the dinner table. They will pile up food they wont eat, they will throw rasgullas in the dust and ask for more and crap like that. But this god like status is never given to them. That's something to be proud of, isn't it?