Big Fat Punjabi wedding

Sometimes the best way to capture its essence is through selfies that capture the most candid moments

Like any other good Punjabi, there is nothing I love more than a Big Fat Punjabi wedding. Over the years, though, my extended Big Fat Family has run through nearly all the marriageable young adults in its ranks. So, you can imagine the excitement and joy when my youngest female cousin announced she had found Mr Right.

If you have ever attended a Punjabi wedding, you will know that it rests on three pillars: food, drink and dancing. And this one was no different. There was lots of food and drink, followed by hours of dancing (I swear if I hear 'Chittyan kalayan' one more time, I will dunk my drink on the deejay) until we all collapsed in a puddle of sweat.

There was one difference, though. Whereas earlier all of us cousins, meeting after other after years in some cases, would have spent our time catching up, sharing each other's news and gossiping about other relatives out of earshot, this time conversation was not part of the equation (perhaps it was down to that loud music we all love so much).

In the place of stories, what we had were selfies. As I scrolled through my phone after the festivities were over, I was struck by how many pictures we had taken of one another and ourselves. There were the obligatory silly-face selfies, the hilarious duck-face versions, and those in which we tried to look our glamorous best in all our wedding finery.

Then began the flurry of mails flying back and forth, as we exchanged pictures, and discussed each one of them. And finally, with a certain inevitability, we posted them on social media and discussed them some more.

I must confess to some perturbation when I dawned on me that I hadn't actually even spoken to some of my relatives properly, so busy was I taking pictures of everything and everyone in sight. But the more I thought about it the better I felt. It wasn't as if I hadn't made connections with the members of my extended family. It was just that I had done it through pictures rather than words.

I guess this is just how we do it these days. And, you know what? It's perfectly fine with me.

Because the conversations and connections the pictures sparked off were way more exciting than any stilted conversation (struggling to be heard over 'Hookah  bar' and 'Radha on the dance floor') at the event itself could have been.

We giggled over the picture an over-enthusiastic photographer took of the backs of one niece and aunt combination, focussing on their backless cholis. We got a little teary-eyed over the candid shots we had taken of the bride as she dressed up for the wedding, all red and gold and glowing with joy. And the pictures of us caught in the most awkward poses on the dance floor provoked much hilarity all the way from Chandigarh to Hyderabad.

But it was the selfies that really captured the essence of the occasion for me. Cuddling together with my assorted nieces and cousins, with everyone contorting themselves to get into the frame, so that we could document the mehendi on our palms, will raise a smile years from now. As will the picture in which our best sultry expressions are effortlessly trumped by my youngest nephew photo-bombing us from the back, sticking his tongue out to indicate what he thought of us silly girls.

Conversations are all well and good when it comes to making connections after years spent apart. But the selfies we took were the perfect aide-memoirs, to keep and cherish after the event, to pull out and chortle over decades later.

Like all weddings, this one too will be immortalised in the official album, done by professional photographers, who will produce perfectly-staged pictures and the most amazing candid, behind-the-scenes shots. And I am sure that it will be lovely to look at and cherished by all of us.

The bride will be beautifully lit and perfectly framed as she walks down the aisle for the jaimala, a sheet of flowers held over her by her brothers. But no matter how perfect this picture, it won't have the same impact as the shot I took of her from the sidelines as she turned to look at me and flash the most mischievous grin, as if only the two of us were party to some delicious secret.

There will be the obligatory family portrait, with all of us, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, bunched around the happy couple on the stage, smiling awkwardly as we wait for the photographer to get the frame just right.
But no matter how good the official pictures, they won't have the immediacy of the candid shots we took of one another, goofing around at the edge of the ceremonies.

It is those selfies, and the moments they immortalise, that will live on long after the mehendi has faded from our hands, and the newly-married couple is over the honeymoon stage of the relationship. And when you think about it, that seems just right doesn't it?

After all, what makes a family if not the memories that stitch us together over time and space. If we didn't have those, we wouldn't really be family at all, would we?

The new normal

What seemed strange just a few years ago no longer causes any raised eyebrows

It struck me first a few months ago when I was away on holiday. No matter which restaurant I went to, expensive or cheap, formal or informal, trendy or old-fashioned, the diners seemed to be more interested in photographing their food than eating. The moment a dish was placed on the table, everyone would whip their smartphones out and begin clicking away. If the restaurant was badly-lit, the pictures were taken with flash, which annoyed me immensely, but left everyone else unmoved.

That’s when it hit me. This is the way diners are expected to behave in restaurants. Because if you don’t take a picture of that exotic new dish you ordered, can you really be sure that you actually ate it? For that matter, can we? So, everyone clicks away while the food grows cold. And nobody thinks that this is at all odd. This is, in fact, the new normal. 

And that got me thinking. How many things that we earlier considered decidedly strange do we now regard as completely normal? The selfie is the first thing that comes to mind. The days when taking pictures of yourself pulling duck faces was seen as a sign of a serious narcissistic personality disorder are gone. Now, the selfie has become so commonplace that nobody even comments on it, leave alone give you strange looks when you take one.

It is that other new-fangled contraption that attracts odd looks when you use it. Yes, I am talking about that plague on human civilization, called the selfie stick, that is rapidly conquering every tourist spot, every museum, every historical palace, one picture at a time. But how long do you think it will be before we start seeing this as entirely normal as well? Going by the selfie experience, not very long at all.

So, what are the other things that best embody the new normal? Well, it is a long list, but here are just a few things off the top of my head.

• Cosmetic work: There was a time when those who resorted to plastic surgery or cosmetic intervention of any kind were seen as vain, even deluded, for trying to interfere with the work of nature. No longer. These days, getting Botox and fillers is seen as being as commonplace as getting a facial or a manicure/pedicure. Nobody raises an eyebrow (possibly because they can’t) if you confess to having had your face ‘done’. Most women who can afford it have their dermatologist on speed dial, scheduling a Fraxel laser treatment or a Thermage session. And nobody thinks anything of it.
• The mainstreaming of porn: The arrival of the Internet made porn readily accessible to anyone who knew how to use a search engine. But there was still a stigma attached to it; people made sure to delete their search history every time they ventured online for a little titillation. Those days are long gone. With the runaway success of books like the Fifty Shades of Trilogy and much else, porn has gone mainstream. (It helps that reading it on a Kindle or any other hand-held device makes it embarrassment-proof as well.) One of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend is Sunny Leone, the porn star who has now been embraced by Indian audiences as a mainstream star.
• Blended families: The era of the nuclear family is over. With divorce rates mounting and re-marriages becoming increasingly common, the blended family is what it is all about these days. Ex-husbands, ex-wives, new wives, new husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, live-in partners, step-kids, half-siblings, step-siblings, all jostle each other around the family table on occasions like Diwali, Holi, Onam or Lohri (or even, this being India where we celebrate every festival we can get out hands on, Christmas and Easter). They eat, they drink, they laugh, they squabble, they sulk, they make-up, they eat and drink some more. It is a beautiful sight.
• Start-ups: Just as in my generation, everyone you spoke to was writing a novel (or thinking about writing one), in the new generation that has just been decanted from college, everyone is working on a start-up (or at the very least talking about working on a start-up). Names like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal are thrown about along with figures that make my mind boggle as everyone talks up the valuation game. All I know is that if I had a dollar for every start-up that I hear about, I would have enough money to launch a start-up of my own.
• Over-sharing: As the joke goes, in the old days you put all your inner-most thoughts and feelings into your personal diary and got seriously annoyed if anyone read it; these days you put all your inner-most thoughts and feelings on to social media, and get very upset if no one pays attention. This is an age of putting it all out there. Your holiday pictures go on Facebook and you wait anxiously to see how your friends react. Every stray thought makes its way on to Twitter, and you measure your self-worth by how RTs (that’s retweets in case you are still living in the 20th century and have not discovered Twitter) it notches up. And then, of course, there are all those food pictures cluttering your phone, which duly do duty on Instagram to tell people what a charmed life you lead. What’s not to ‘like’?