Maami lost in Chennai - Part I

I was wondering if we could just peep into one of our Maamis' lifestyle. How about the one living in Chennai? As I had mentioned in the last entry, she is experiencing lot of value addition in terms of learning about the Tam Bram culture and rituals. The experience became all the more enriching as she is located at the epicentre of all the family functions, i.e., her Periamma's place. Moreover, her cousin's marriage has also been fixed, which made her witness what all goes behind making preparations for a Tam Bram's marriage. Let us take it from the beginning. It all started 4-5 months back when Ms.D's cousin's profile was created on TamilMatrimony.com. The cousin was about to complete her M.Sc in food and nutrition. She was brilliant in academics and also received a scholarship from her college. She was dreaming about working as a researcher and going for higher studies when suddenly her world just turned upside down. Her parents made it quite clear that due to family problems she has to get married by next year. She somehow pulled herself together and prepared herself for what was to follow. Lot of enquiries started flowing in (thanks to TamilMatrimony which comes to the rescue of the worried souls of bachelors and their families). The girl's parents started visiting some of the short listed boys' families to take the talks to the next stage. However, none of the families or the boys could manage to impress them. In due course of time (say, 3 months), the parents started suffering from hyper-tension. On one hand they couldn't find a good enough match for their daughter and on the other hand they wanted to empathize with those boys' families whom they had rejected. The girl was also quite pissed off with whatever was going on around her and decided to take a call now. She decided to appear for an all India entrance exam for a valuable 10 months course in Food & Nutrition. This was more of a break for her as she was doing what interested her. She managed to reserve a seat for herself in this course. Her parents, who had surrendered themselves to their fate, were about to deposit fees for this course when the most unexpected happened.

One fine evening my Periyappa receives a call from a gentleman who wanted to visit him to talk about the alliance. He and his wife were welcomed. I was asked not to appear before them (I guess they didn't want to ruin the chances of my cousin! Now who would argue with them that there could be no such chances at all.) Well, the talks began and later, to everybody's pleasant surprise, it was discovered that this family was an old acquaintance of our family in Mettur. There was no looking back now. All that both the parties were looking for was an assurance of a good family background. After some discussions, a day was fixed for the boy and his family to see the girl. At this stage, Project marriage was sanctioned by the 2 families pending the boy/girl's approval. On that momentous day I wanted to be present there but again I was asked to show some sincerity towards my newly found job and was driven away. By afternoon, I got the confirmation through my cousin's SMS that the alliance was finalized. In the evening, I had a chat with my cousin, over a round of 'bonda', as I was curious to know about the talk she had with her would be soulmate. Also, I wanted to check if she had chosen to implement some of my suggestions. She finally told me that it was quite a simple affair for the 'boy'. He was very casual in his approach. He seemed to be a family-oriented and gently guy. He just took 5-10 minutes to put forward some simple questions before her which she meekly answered. She was highly impressed with him. This was a formal beginning to their romantic relationship as well as to the so called saga of a wedding!