Читать книгу The Moaning of Life - Karl Pilkington - Страница 14

THE BIG DAY

The next day I was to witness a wedding in Bangalore to see how it’s really done in India. Seeing as I’m not into the kind of weddings people have back home, I wasn’t holding out much hope that I’d be keen on one of these big affairs. Weddings here are massive. The two wedding planners, Vithika and Divya, had asked me to help out.

KARL: Stressed?

DIVYA: Yes, it’s a big day.

VITHIKA: We’ve been working a long time for this wedding. I hope you’re ready for it.

KARL: How much time have you spent planning this one?

DIVYA: About two months goes into the planning.

KARL: That’s normal?

DIVYA: Yeah.

VITHIKA: And also so much changes every day, you know. It’s four days of events.

KARL: The wedding goes on for four days? Why’s that?

VITHIKA: Well, we have rituals, celebrations. We just finished the dancing and singing, the day before yesterday. Yesterday was painting-your-hands ceremony. Today’s the actual wedding.

KARL: That’s mental. I mean, four days. That’s too much.

VITHIKA: Unless you experience something you don’t know what it is like. When you go to the wedding and see the parents and the close family members you see how much they are part of the bride and groom’s life. I think the other thing to understand is, in India a wedding is also about social status.

DIVYA: It’s a statement of your wealth. It’s a statement that you’re now married, and it’s the beginning of a new life for the whole family.

KARL: And how much are we talking?

DIVYA: I think they start about $200,000.

KARL: How much?! That’s mad.

VITHIKA: You have to understand that people here spend more money on just a couple of occasions and they save all their life for them. The parents, when the daughter is born, they start saving for her wedding.

KARL: Hmm. How long’s he known the woman?

DIVYA: You know, we really didn’t ask him that. Probably a year.

KARL: Is that all?

VITHIKA: That’s a long time.

I suppose, considering Shivani was talking about marriage after knowing me for just over an hour, a year is a long time in India. Before setting off for the ceremony I checked my phone and Suzanne had sent me a text saying Happy Valentine’s Day. I’d been too busy to remember. I think it’s all a con, anyway. If there’s one night that I can guarantee I’ll be in, it’s February the fourteenth. If you go out, you’re getting ripped off paying over the odds for an average meal. It’s just another day for card companies to make some money. Did you know the diamond anniversary was invented by a diamond company? It won’t be long before we have a Brillo Pad day. I actually blame shelving. If it wasn’t for shelving, people wouldn’t have cards. In fact, get rid of shelving and we’d get rid of a lot of crap in the world. Ornaments would also go. We don’t need them. Shelves just hold shit these days, so get rid.

DIVYA: We go to the groom’s house now. Please help him to get ready and be around him, so if he needs any help he can ask you for it.

KARL: How old is he? Why does he need help getting dressed?

VITHIKA: We don’t mean that you’re putting his clothes on for him, but there are things he needs to put on his head that you have to make sure are straight, because for every picture he has to make sure that the turban sits properly on his head.

DIVYA: Basically, you are not to leave him unattended at any given point in time. Just be around him.

I was given a traditional-looking suit to wear to the ceremony. Considering I’m not the groom it was pretty fancy. It’s the sort of thing my auntie Nora likes. Even the colour, magnolia, is right for her. She loves magnolia. Everything in her house is magnolia. I reckon if she went to play paintball she’d only play if she could shoot magnolia. It was the sort of suit Elvis wore on stage in Vegas, yet all I’d be doing was making sure some bloke’s hat is on straight. It was covered in beads and little plastic pearls. Washing machines up and down India must get jammed all the time with people washing these things. We went round to the apartment where the family were getting ready. I knew it was going to be a long day . . .

9.30 a.m.

I met Vik the groom. He was having his turban fitted. Vithika explained again that it was my responsibility to make sure the turban wasn’t covering his eyes. I told her Vik would know himself if it was covering his eyes, as he wouldn’t be able to see.

9.40 a.m.

I was asked to move all the guests upstairs to the roof terrace where the puja was going to take place. This would involve close friends and family blessing Vik before leaving for the temple. I asked them about three times to move, but people were ignoring me. I asked louder and then got told off for shouting. I got confused as I thought I saw the same girl twice and it turned out they were twins. They were the spitting image of each other. It would be odd to go out with a twin, as when the other one gets married you would know that their husband also fancies your wife. That’s why I can’t believe it when people say they’ve found ‘the one’. If it’s a twin you’re going out with, how do you know it’s ‘the right one’?

9.50 a.m.

Everyone was finally upstairs, candles were lit and rice was sprinkled over Vik for good luck. Guests dipped their wedding finger into some red powder and then touched Vik’s forehead to leave a mark. This is considered important, as it represents the third eye. They believe the usual two eyes see the outside world and the third sees inside and helps you trust your intuition. I suppose this is similar to how we have a ‘gut’ feeling. I go with my gut rather than my head to make decisions. Maybe they use the third eye in India as they can’t trust their guts as much due to all the spicy food. Mine had been playing up since I had arrived in India – I had a red eye, but it wasn’t on my face.

10 a.m.

I tried to get everyone downstairs to the cars to head out to the temple. I’d have had more luck herding ants. No one seemed to be listening. Some woman was helping herself to some cornflakes in the kitchen. I don’t even know if she was part of the family or someone who had wandered in off the street.

KARL: Let’s go, everybody!

VITHIKA: Karl, just say, ‘One last call, we’re leaving.’

KARL: Okay. (to guests) This is it now, we’re not messing about. We’re leaving now. If you don’t come . . . I’ve told you.

DIVYA: Be polite.

KARL: It’s hard to be polite when they’re not listening.

VITHIKA: Guests in India are like gods, so you do not . . . It’s okay if they don’t come, you carry on to the next thing. But, please, you cannot get angry.

There was a kerfuffle in the hallway as people tried to find their shoes. I stayed in the apartment until they had cleared. I prefer to wait than be in a crowd. I do the same when boarding a plane. I waited for five minutes, and two pairs of shoes were left – mine and the pair that must have belonged to the woman who was busy eating cornflakes. It was like an advert for Crunchy Nut. If she wanted breakfast she should have got up earlier.

11.15 a.m.

We arrived at the temple and waited for the bride to turn up. I had to stand by Vik’s car like a spare part to be ready to open the door when it was time for him to get out, but after twenty minutes of standing in the heat I decided to get in the back. Vinnie, Vik’s brother, was in the driver’s seat.

VINNIE: It’s a lot more complicated than a Christian or Catholic wedding, hey?

KARL: Dead right. I was in Vegas a couple of days ago. They do drive thru weddings, all done in ten minutes.

VINNIE: Seriously? Drive thru wedding?

KARL: Telling ya, drive thru wedding.

VINNIE: The whole custom? In the car?

KARL: Yep.

Mind you, with the traffic in India being so mental, a drive thru wouldn’t be as straightforward here. Nothing is straightforward in India. I noticed Vithika was watching me, so I checked Vik’s hat and gave her the thumbs up. I heard trumpets being blown and was asked to get out of the car. Deepa, the bride, had arrived. Divya told me to hurry over to the entrance to welcome people in. If the whole point of these massive weddings is to impress, I reckon having me, a bald white man in a magnolia beaded suit, at every corner, the guests are just going to think it’s been done on a shoestring. The trumpets were making a horrible sound. It was similar to that sound you hear when you trap a wasp behind a curtain and its wings go mental.

11.30 a.m.

Managed to get a good seat at the front inside. Vik and his family were on one side and Deepa’s on the other. The twins from earlier were stood with her as photographs were being taken. Having the twins there made it look tidy. Like bookends. I played spot the difference to keep myself entertained.

11.45 a.m.

Around five hundred people were crammed into the temple. I honestly don’t know that many people. I’ve only got fifty-seven contacts in my mobile, and that includes the local chip shop, the old chip shop and a bloke I met once who can replace car windows. I was just hoping people wouldn’t start doing speeches, otherwise this could be a long day. Maybe that’s why the celebration goes on for four days.

Divya gave me a big plate of rice to hand out to the guests. This is thrown over the couple once they’re married. It’s better than confetti in a way, as it’s easier to vac up and it can be re-used, whereas paper confetti sticks to the carpet. I’ve never been a fan of confetti, anyway, as the amount of fun it gives versus the time spent cleaning it up isn’t worth it. Same with party poppers.

Noon

The ceremony started, and there was a lot of noise. People were chatting, and I couldn’t hear what was going on at the front. As I sat and watched I wondered if Indian weddings are massive because of the amount of people in the country. Watch a Bollywood movie and it has a cast of thousands. Nothing is ever a small, private affair. If you’re a bloke and you go to the doctors to let a nurse check your bollocks for lumps she probably does two fellas at once. I doubt there’s such a thing as a one-on-one here.

12.05 p.m.

I got dragged into the canteen area to help prepare the food. There were twenty-five items of food to be handed out to each guest. I was put in charge of salt. Again, more evidence that there are too many people in the country – where else would someone be given the job of handing out salt? I know I haven’t got many skills, but I didn’t feel like I was being used to my full potential. I’d spent the morning making sure a hat was on straight, and now salt.

12.30 p.m.

Promoted to serve poppadoms.

1 p.m.

I gave a helping hand to the naan bread man but got told off for giving three naans to a few people. The man in charge of the kitchen said I mustn’t waste food or there wouldn’t be enough for everyone. Waste food?! He’s having a laugh. There’s about a hundredweight of rice chucked all over the temple next door, and all I’ve done is give away six naan breads.

1.30 p.m.

I got a glimpse of Vik and Deepa on stage while people got up to have photos taken with them. They were starting to look weary. I served fruit salad and ice cream to five hundred people before leaving.

6.30 p.m.

Divya and Vithika showed me round the grounds of the party venue. It was about the size of Old Trafford. There was a drinking area with around fifty tables, four hundred seats were in lines in front of a stage where Vik and Deepa would come and receive blessings from the guests, and a food area where there were too many stalls to count serving every type of food you could wish for. My jobs for the evening included making sure candles on the tables were always lit, that everyone had peanuts and clearing away any rubbish. Jesus. I doubt someone had the job of taking care of peanuts at William and Kate’s wedding.

7 p.m.

Some cameramen were setting up to record the blessings. A huge pole with a camera on the end, it was the sort of thing you see at the Baftas or the TV Quick awards. I don’t know why things like this get recorded, as I doubt anyone ever gets round to watching it back. They can’t even say they’re recording it for people who can’t make it, as Divya said they were expecting around five thousand people, so surely that’s got to be everyone they know.

8 p.m.

Vik and Deepa stood on stage with their family as guests queued to shake their hands. No wonder the divorce rate in India is a lot lower than in other parts of the world. I can’t imagine that many people would want to go through with all this fannying about a second time. Just because you have a big celebration it doesn’t mean the relationship is any stronger, does it? Look at swans. They don’t have a big party, but they’re known to stick with their partners for life. Saying that, I’ve always wondered if that’s because they all look the same, so there’s no point in them running off with another swan.

9 p.m.

I had a break from candles and peanuts round the back of the venue near the car park, and had a knockabout with a football with some taxi drivers. This is where the toilets were. They only had two portable cubicles. Five thousand people, $200,000 and yet there’s only two toilets. With the amount of nuts that had been consumed this was definitely going to cause problems later.

10.30 p.m.

Vik and Deepa were still on stage shaking hands. Most people say your wedding day is the best day of your life, but I just can’t see this being the case for them. Vik and Deepa didn’t seem like show-offs, so I doubt they were enjoying all the fuss. After so many days of it, surely everyone has had enough. You can have too much of a good thing. It’s like when I bought the box set of The Sopranos. I loved the first few, and even though it was still good, after that I just couldn’t take any more.

11 p.m.

The food area opened, but people were still requesting nuts. Two men in fancy outfits and headgear welcomed people – imagine a type of over-the-top, drag queen Ronald McDonald with a Freddie Mercury moustache. I didn’t see the point in this. Stuff like this is just to give people something to talk about. It’s like ice sculptures. No one really needs a six-foot ice sculpture of an owl at a party. They don’t come cheap either, and these days with global warming they don’t even last as long as they used to.

1 a.m.

I finally got to use some of my skills and DJ for twenty minutes. I used to do this at social clubs when I was younger with my mate Makin. We called ourselves Pilkies Makin Music. We had business cards made up on shiny blue card with a gold font, but we never gave them out as they were too expensive. We’d hand them over to people wanting to book us and then get them to write down the phone number so we could have the card back. I didn’t have any Indian tracks on my iPod, but I dug out a few songs I thought any culture could dance to.

1.30 a.m.

Had a bit of a dance. Suzanne always says I’m not that good at dancing, as I don’t know what moves are gonna come. I suppose I dance in the same way that plankton swim. They just go where they’re taken. That’s how I do most things in life. Unlike this whole celebration.