What happens in Vegas ends up as a wedding ceremony in Chennai

by neo

idli

Last week Neo finally reconciled with the friend who convinced him that it is considered romantic to propose to South Indian girls with a rava idli instead of a ring. The only reason why Mrs. Neo accepted the proposal was because she probably didn’t know any better (plus there was the slight matter of Neo being the perfect guy, and the even slighter matter of Mrs. Neo being drunk). Besides, Mrs. Neo gave Neo bonus points for even finding a rava idli in Vegas.

Exactly a year later, the Neos were married in Chennai by a priest who had the sort of authoritative voice that could successfully hail a Chennai auto driver from 100 feet away. Neo’s aunt helped translate the priestly instructions from Tamil to English, with helpful value-added interjections like “You didn’t have to scratch your belly, Neo. When the priest said “repeat after me”, he didn’t mean it that literally” and “Stay away from that fire, or you’re going to set your dhoti on fire again.”

Arun Murugesan Weds Vidhyapriya

There is immense business potential in Indian weddings – Neo pitched his startup idea to Mrs. Neo’s rich uncle (before the stock market crashed) during one of Mrs. Neo’s 193 saree changes.

Neo calls it the “WTFGO LCD overhead display system”:

Problem statement: At any given time, about 80% of the wedding guests and approximately 100% of those getting married don’t know “WTF is going on”.

Solution: The WTFGO system is a wall-mounted LCD display that helps people understand “WTF is going on”. Example messages on this display would be:

  1. “This part of the ceremony has no cosmic significance – we’re just standing around waiting because the priest had to take yet another bathroom break.”
  2. “The rumors of bacterial infection in the Kheer rice pudding are entirely unfounded. Though it could use more sugar.”
  3. “We have missed this mahurat because of the physical altercation between the bride’s niece and the bride’s BFF over which mascara color the bride should wear, but DO NOT PANIC – there will be another auspicious moment in just five more hours.”
  4. “As a safety measure, please continue to let your kids run unsupervised while you eat and lament the death of Indian culture.”
  5. “The awesome honey-sweet milk that is being used for this wedding is graciously provided by Aarey Milk – Got (Vedic) Milk?”
  6. “If you haven’t eaten in the past 2 minutes and are feeling weak, please notify some sufficiently subservient-looking family member from the bride’s family and they will get you a plate full of carbs food from the buffet line.”
  7. (White folks in the audience can pay to subscribe to the official Twitter feed, which features retweet-friendly, grammar-free Deepak-Chopra-esque lines like: “Seventh Step is for Sakha – friendship – to be dependable and faithful to each other and life long companionship.”.)

The best part of the Neo wedding ceremony was the wedding night – sweet, blissful sleep for 9 hours. Yes, all the Neos did on their wedding night was sleep – judge all you like, but lets just say it was not easy for Neo to stay “up” after being holed up for 20 hours in a claustrophobic room filled mostly with 80 year-old kids.

But the elders would be proud, because the Neos consummated their wedding on a highly auspicious day – it’s just that the auspicious day turned out to be an exact year before their wedding date. That was fate. After all, who are we mortals to judge the intentions of God ?

As Deepak Chopra says, “The atoms of the universe are the thoughts of the mind, the food we eat are made of the stars of Gods creation, and the love we make is the Universe smiling at itself.”

(Actually Neo just made that line up, but he feels one with Deepak Chopra so it’s all good).

The rava idlis for breakfast the next morning were delicious.

PS: A shout out for gay marriage rights. After all, why should only straight people suffer ? Here’s your moment of zen:

PS2: In case you haven’t guessed by now, Neo is no expert on Indian philosophy, but from what he’s gathered from his family, the Indian position on sex is (no, not missionary, get your mind out of the gutter, and your sex life out of the rut) – “Sex is a dirty thing, so you should only do it to the people you love the most.”

PS3: Actually, Neo prefers the Wii.

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