Unrelations!

Rose, my cousin sister was still single. She is my mom's niece in a sort of way, though in a pretty convoluted way! Her Dad is a proud man. He doesn’t like to mix with us as he feels we are high brow or the more apt term would be “show offs.” Our fault…is that we have cars, which according to him is extravagance and that we have parties, which according to him is moral degradation and many other perceived or non perceived faults. He is the typical PLG.

But he is family and hence we cannot cut off ties with his kids because of him. When we drop in to their home, their attitude is one of restraint. Gifts to the kids are ignored and not acknowledged as though it was unnecessary and after polite talk, we take leave of the excruciating atmosphere. The kids watch us go with sadness. Victims of family insecurities.

With the parents botching up one proposal after another due to their stupid pride, Rose seemed doomed to remain unmarried at 29. This is when my mom decided to step in like she did countless times before. And when my mom decides to step in, it means her slave laborer i.e yours truly is the person who actually does all the menial work.

So I made the Kerala Matrimony account, scanned prospective grooms and passed on the scanned and filtered proposals to Rose’s brother via email. Every single proposal was found faulty and the attitude of the parents was that we were trying to send their daughter off with some loser.

Ignoring them,, my mom persisted err told me to persist. It was kinda fun reading the proposals and the atrocious English and me and pals had some fun times giggling when mom was not looking. At work too, the Kerala Matrimony log in was our ticket to much merriment and laughter!

Sometime back we got the good news that Rose was finally getting engaged! The boy, her cousin brother informed my mom, was from Changanassery and they found him via a newspaper ad. When the details of the boy arrived, I was amused to see that it was one of the prospects that we had got through Kerala Matrimony. Anyways, we didn’t want to spoil the parent’s party by making them acknowledge that it was my mom and her slave driving that got them a groom.

Rose gets engaged today in Pala. I am very happy for Rose. The wedding is in Changanassery, the groom’s place, as per our customs. We are not invited. They did send word through Rose’s mom’s sister. But protocol demands that the parents call us and invite us. So we gave it the miss as it is obvious they want it so. If you think, we are sobbing like ladies in Hindi movies, then you are mistaken. We are too busy doing high fives. Besides we are used to such attitudes from Rose's parents!

And as my Dad tartly observed as he handed me a beer today, “Poor Lonai (Rose’s dad). Caught between the devil ( my mom) and the deep sea ( me). At least he should have acknowledged it. Now If something goes wrong, he cannot blame the devil or the deep sea” (This was said in Malayalam and I may have missed the essence while translating! :p )

And so we toasted to Rose and Jose’s good health. Wishing them both the very best life has to offer. Happy times, strength to get the bad times and lots of happy events to tide over the bad. God bless!

p.s I had to regretfully err under gun point close the Kerala Matrimony account. It was an out and out entertainment channel for us, with more variety in programmes than all our mallu TV channels put together! :p