Invites..

Its been quite hectic on the bedding front over the last couple of weeks as both sets of parents are in their respective native places getting hyper over their "evil" (read Traditional) customs and how to accomodate all these within a span of 2-3 days.
Tamasha guaranteed when the customs get finalised and are actioned.. ;-)

Wedding invitations are getting printed in different languages - English, Bengali and may be Tamil as well... The bride and the groom want a personal invitation from their side, so that they could invite their own friends..
I have put in a request to print it in all national languages so that it leaves people with more options..

Then comes the job of applying the traditional turmeric and kumkum to the edges of the invitations which is a task in itself.. am sure we are going to be working on the invitations even after we get married.. ;-)

Btw, I've heard people say, 'Love is blind'.. how about having an invitation in braille as well.. I know i know.. i'm a genius to have come up with this idea..! ;-)

The pundit saga..

After days and days of negotiations, both the parents have finally reached an agreement on who gets to conduct the actual wedding ceremony.
The wedding will be jointly conducted by a Tam priest and a Bong priest. These priests would have to decide on what specific mantras/shlokas should be recited on the wedding day, in what order and who gets to recite them.

Since there are a lot of Tamils residing in the area where the wedding would be conducted, the task of finding a good priest should not be a problem..
However, finding a Tam priest in Bong land will be Raj's parents' responsibility.. Sources say that there is a high possibility that there might be a concern on differentiating between a Tam priest, a Telugu or a Mal priest for the Bong family since a south indian priest could fall in any of the categories.. However, this will have to be sorted out by the bride's parents.. :-)

Now, Both of us, being slightly non-religious, are considering not having a priest at all for the wedding.. But needless to say, this would be rejected even moments before the suggestion is made.. :-) Now, all we look forward to is the image of Raj and Me sitting beside each other in the mantap, all decked up, waiting for the priests to stop fighting about which mantra to recite..

hmmm... May be we werent actually meant to get married.. ;-)

Pati sapta..

It was Makar Sankranthi.. I wished Raj's Parents and with complete confidence in voice asked his mom, so, you prepared Pati sapta today?
His mom's face just glowed listening to that.. She seemed very impressed with me for knowing the name of a bong sweet so well..
She then said, yes yes.. i did and it has come out very well.. I'll surely teach you how it is prepared..

We then spoke a bit about Sankranthi and a few other things and left from there.. On the way back, Raj was still tooo curious to know how i could remember the name 'Pati shapta'.. He said, " I must tell you, i'm so impressed that you learnt bengali so soon.. How the hell did u manage to remember the name of that sweet and use it at the right time?''

"Anything for you.." I said and we continued the ride.. :-)

Oh By the way.. did u know that 'Paati' means 'Grandma' and 'Saapta' means 'ate' in Tamil..?

What?? and you all thought i have a strong inclination to learn Bengali..?? ;-)

About the Blog..

What does one do when one falls in love with one of those lazy, smart, food loving Bong men?

Well, if I had any sense, I would have married some nice TamBram boy my appa picked out for me and lived happily ever after..
hmm.. but there's no point in discussing what could have happened.. ;-) For now let me just say that I am supposed to be getting married off to my Bong fiance (Raj) on the 17th June this year.. :-)

I intend to let you all know about all the happenings in the forthcoming days and months.. and about how i would be getting into the Bong way of life very soon.. :-)