In previous years, I would fall off the posting wagon for a week, then two weeks, then months and more. I'm determined not to do that this time, so have an update on what I've been up to before I slowly catch up on
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snowflake_challenge over the course of the next week!
- The weekend of the 17th/18th was my city's major literary fest. I only went to three panels (one with a Supreme Court judge, one with a historian who is the grandson of two major Independence-era politicians, one with the author of a legal handbook for women) since the others weren't really my jam, but I enjoyed all three.
- I got bookses! Defying the Odds (about Dalit entrepreneurs), Reclaiming Bharat (about the unexpected rebuke India delivered to Modi in the 2024 election), The Lion of Naushera (about a little-known Muslim hero of the 1947 war with Pakistan), One Way To Love (a contemporary romance about a young Indian Muslim couple), Engineering A Nation (about M. Visvesvaraya, a pioneering colonial-era engineer and administrator), and Swadeshi Steam (about one man's effort to create an Indian-owned shipping company and break the British monopoly on maritime trade).
- The fest was also on Sunday, but I did not go (I regret this, in retrospect) because I needed to prepare for a trip.
- What was this trip for, you ask? To attend the wedding of my dad's cousin's son. I have never met this dude, or his bride, in my life. But because I'm Indian (and because Stepmum had the sense to stay home with the dogs so Dad had a free plus one), and also because that branch of the family is LOADED, I was invited. (Seriously, y'all, this wedding was nuts. Three days at a five-star resort, accomodations all paid for; we just had to get our butts there.)
- This was a fancy enough wedding each event (welcome dinner, haldi ceremony, sangeet, muhurtam (actual ceremony), and reception came with dress codes. With specific colours. Luckily, I could use clothes I aready owned for the sangeet, muhurtam, and reception, and I found a cheap burgundy flapper dress for the welcome dinner and a yellow kurta for the haldi, the latter of which I got many compliments on ^_^
- The wedding was as fun as an event I have zero personal stake in could be. The bride's family is North Indian, so while the ceremony itself was as traditionally Tamil Brahmin as could be, there was also a baraat and a sangeet, which were fun to look at from the sidelines. The ceremony itself I can only presume was lovely, since the same thing happened as most Tamil weddings I've been to - we couldn't actually see jack on account of all the photographers/videographers/idiots with phones. I wish they'd done what a buddy did and had TV screens up so we could actually SEE S and S getting married. The reception was a lot of fun, too - some great speeches, and the MCs were hilarious.
- Getting to see family was lovely, even if Favourite Cousin S and her husband couldn't make it. I did get to spend time with dad's-sister Aunt S and dad's-cousin Aunt S, and no-longer-tiny Cousin S, which was great, and get to reassure various members of Dad's family of my continued good health. I also got to talk to various family members about the diaspora experience, which provided fodder for Amita fic, so that was nice, lol.
- The food, sadly, was kind of disappointing, because who has a destination wedding in Goa and serves practically no Goan food? My family, apparently. (Okay, in fairness, Tamil Brahmins are strict vegetarians so I don't know if they could have been convinced that anything Goan, which is famous for its fish and pork, was vegetarian even if it was.) That said, the food they did serve was excellent, as befits a Taj hotel. The best part was aloo paratha for breakfast, especially since they had a different Goan curry each morning to eat it with. No Goan food at lunch or dinner, alas.
- The actual wedding feast was catered by the ne plus ultra of traditional wedding caterers that the family bussed in all the way from Chennai. (They would have flown them in, but aviation is a shitshow right now and cooking implements are HEAVY.) No naan and butter chicken here - we were served a traditional Iyengar
elai saapadu, on a plantain leaf. Yes, I stuffed my face.
- A big difference between Indian, or at least Tamil, weddings, and Western ones? There are also gifts FROM the host family to the guests. Being a family member means I got a sari (a gorgeous green silk one I have to find an excuse to wear). All guests also got something called a 'bakshanam' - basically, a hamper of sweets and savouries to take home with them - as well as a couple more standard favours. Given that my poor carryon suitcase was already full, this presented an interesting packing dilemma, lol. Thankfully I'd taken a collapsible duffel with, so it was all manageable.
- I left on Tuesday, came home late Friday, and spent the weekend being a giant lump. Love my family, but that was entirely too many people and too much time walking on grass in high heels, lol.
Aaaand that was my week. Hopefully all y'all's was less nuts.
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fairyniamh
