Pickled. Dazed and Confused.

Chaat and Paani Puri will also make good metaphors. I can’t think of anything else that combines sweet with sour, hot with tangy, yummy with I-think-I am-going-to-throw-up.

That best describes the last two weeks of my life. Just for the record, I am not referring to anything I ate.

Now here goes. Two weeks ago I headed to Kerala to particpate in a friend’s wedding. They decided to tie the knot on a Sunday at Kochi(Cochin). I decided that considering I was going to be sitting in a rotten bus for an entire night, I might as well try to make the most of the trip. The plan was simple. Go to kerala a few days in advance, spend a couple of days with Grandma, and then leisurely head to Kochi, catch up cousins, attend the wedding and get back to Bangalore. How can such a simple plan go wrong? As I soon found out, it can. Apparently anything can happen in Kerala, which just reinforces my belief, that Kerala is literally Gods-Own-Country.

Let’s take one thing at a time. The first two days were bang on, right on target. Peaceful two days on my uncle’s plantation, listening to songs of the birds, the chirping of crickets, watching it rain, living amidst a sea of green, fresh fish, beer, it was heavenly. Welcome respite from the hot Bangalore summer, the traffic, the dust, the pollution, the powercuts, the overcrowded pubs filled with fools yacking about IPL, overpriced restaurants and crappy food, the list is endless.

So there I was, Saturday afternoon, sitting on my backside, after two spending two days in quite slumber, making plans for Sunday, the big day, the very reason that brought me to Kerala, my friend’s wedding. I phoned my cousin in Cochin, and he said, “Super!”. Two minutes later he said, “You know what, there’s a also a Pulickal wedding on Sunday. But that’s in the morning and we’ll get back in time for your friend’s wedding reception in the evening”. I said “Super”! That was a terrific plan. Two birds with one stone. Attend a family wedding, everyone’s happy to see you, you represent the family, and you get to meet several of your uncles and cousins, just super. I couldn’t have planned it better, even more because I hadn’t planned for it.

To be honest I really wasn’t surprised that there was a family function /ceremony on the same day. You see Keralites, don’t really have a social life.

Well, who can blame them when all your weekends are already blocked with family obligations and events? In Christian circles, in Kerala, life revolves as follows. To start with, if you add the number of immediate uncles and aunts, you’ll easily hit double digits. Large families were quite common with the previous generation. A dozen immediate uncles/aunts, including both maternal and paternal, means on an average, if you take 3 children per family, three dozen cousins. Let’s be a little conservative and hope that in the land of rubber, some people actually used them, it still leaves you with thirty cousins. All first generation cousins.
Considering that you are among the youngest in the list of cousins, your life goes thus:
Thirty cousins means thirty weddings.
Thirty weddings means there will have to be thirty engagement ceremonies, and these are like mini weddings, you would still call around two hundred people, so this has to be attended. Another reason why one should attend Engagements is because only immediate families and very close friends are called for it, so you can’t decline.
So, you already have 60!
Thirty weddings mean, on an average, and being conservative, 60 child births – 60 baptisms.
That’s soon followed by 60 “First-Holy-Communions”.
Then, how can we forget the house warming ceremonies when your cousins move into a house of their own? Another thirty.
Then, sooner or later someone’s going to kick the bucket, so you have funerals to attend.
So that’s 210 immediate family social events, excluding the funerals. Then just add friend’s weddings, friend’s house warmings, celebrations in the neighbourhood, church feasts, and miscellaneous parties, and you soon realise that your life is screwed.

Ever wondered why Mallus’ can’t dance or sing or play the guitar? Mystery solved.

Coming back to my story……

I was pretty kicked until this point. Two weddings on Sunday. Two parties. Whoppee.

Ten minutes later, the mobile rings. I just hate this device……..

This time it’s not so good news. A voice on the phone, don’t recall who, I think it was my mum, but whoever it was, tells me that my uncle, my father’s cousin to be exact, just expired. There could be a funeral, a Pulickal funeral, the following day, Sunday.

Screwed.

Now, what do you do in a situation like this? The easiest thing to do is skip all the family engagements, stick to original plan, attend your friend’s wedding and head back.

I couldn’t do this. I had already announced my presence in Kerala to my relatives. There’s no escaping this. You are simply screwed.

The Pulickals being a practical and intelligent lot, pushed the funeral by a day, to accommodate the wedding. Super!

So, we are back to the original plan. I set out to the church. It was a fabulous wedding. The best Pulickal wedding I ever attended. I can go and on about how wonderful it was, but that’s not necessary.

After a sumptous meal, and plenty of socialising, we headed for kochi.

As we were driving, my uncle decides to make a quick stop at his cousin’s place to pay his respects! Well, it was on the way. But we are not dressed to go to a house where someone just expired. My aunt is wearing silk, you don’t go to pay respects to the dead dressed in silk. She might as well carry a bottle of champagne and a party hat. That’s how it’s viewed in Kerala.

But then, being cousins they would understand that we were at the wedding, and we are merely trying to honour all our family obligations.

Little did I realise that the two, the girl who just tied the knot, and the man who just kicked the bucket were neighbours. Immediate neighbours! They share the same boundary wall !

This is getting awkward.

Then, it gets worse. You prepare yourself mentally to enter the house of the deceased. There’s a solemn funeral hymn, the Malayalam equivalent of Abide-With-Me, that’s playing melancholically out of a speaker that’s placed in the courtyard. It’s a very sad, depressing song and tune. It helps.

I step inside the house.

In the middle of the drawing room, I see my uncle, my dad’s cousin, placed in a air-conditioned icebox with a glass top, a mobile mortuary as it’s commonly called, family and mourners seated around it, grieving and reciting the rosary. I meet his son, my second cousin, offer my condolences.

I step out of the house, into the courtyard. The sad music is still playing in the background. Then, “Hi Sachu”! This is a Pleasant Surprise!”.

I bump into some of my uncles, my dad’s brothers. They didn’t expect to see me here. We are all smiles. They ask about my parents, brother…. My life, my job… and I ask about them and my cousins, work, business…. It’s life as usual, as if we met at a wedding.

What happened after that was like being on an acid trip.

I meet people I met at the wedding. The dress code is no longer an issue. Everybody understands. So that’s forgiven. We form a little circle, and we talk. For about five minutes we talk about the deceased. After that, it gets weird.

I am told that my cousin, technically my second cousin, (does it bloody matter?) the one who’s marriage I just attended, had her grandfather pass away the day she was supposed to get engaged. The engagement was postponed of course. We are not freaking animals you know. This uncle, the deceased, attended her grandfather’s funeral the next day. Soon after the funeral he went to inspect a house that was under construction, climbed a 15ft ladder, to instruct or help a labourer, lost his balance, fell off the ladder, hit his head, slipped into a coma. Don’t ask me questions like what possessed a seventy five year old man to climb a ladder. The man was fit, he was Pulickal, We don’t throw in the towel that early. There are centenareans in my family. One went on to see 108.

Anyways, he came out of the coma, but still had breathing difficulties. Was on the respirator for many days, and finally left for his heavenly abode a day before the girl’s wedding.

How fucking weird is that? You sit there, listening to all this, a worker in the courtyard is busy putting a temporary roof over our heads. There’s a possibility of rain. Then someone cracks. He says it’s funny, that he heard of a story where a proud father was once looking at people put up the decorations, arranging the chairs in the courtyard, a shade to protect you from the afternnon sun on the occasion of his son’s wedding, he jokingly muttered to someone standing close by, “ I wonder what it would feel like to die under something so beautiful.” No prizes for guessing what happened next. The man suffered a massive heart attack that night. Wish granted, god must have chuckled. Everyone’s all smiles.

It gets worse. One of my uncle’s realises it’s me, Sachin! All this while he had mistaken me for an elder cousin, because I came with his younger brother! Some more laughs. We are still at the house of the deceased mind you. This is turning into one crazy trip. They went on for another ten minutes, the stories getting more and more bizarre with every passing minute. Finally, we come back on track. That’s when I am told about the party last night in the house next door, the cousin who just tied the knot. Well, the story goes thus. The Engagement was a very solemn affair as it was barely week or so after her grandfather’s funeral. The memories were still very fresh. To make up for that, they decided to have a lavish party a day before the wedding. Everybody expected this uncle to pull out of his illness. At least no one expected him to kick the bucket on the eve of the wedding.

Deliverance. My cousin decides its time to head back to Kochi. It was about time, couldn’t go on that trip any more.

An hour later, we are in Kochi. I rush to shower and I am now all dressed, for a wedding party! It’s a great party. They are serving JW Black Label. Its being served in the parking lot, kebabs and all. Surprised? It’s counting day after the recent elections, and there’s a nation wide ban on serving alcohol. So, no liqour was served officially. I couldn’t care less, I can do with some alcohol at this point. I need some, actually a lot, of alcohol at this point.

The next day.

My dad’s elder brother was in the hospital. An allergic reaction to an angiogram they did on him a few weeks ago. The ink they inject into your blooodstream , tends to have side effects and the doctors are clueless as to what exactly is wrong with him. Its not a very pleasant sight to see one of your favourite uncles in a hospital bed, doctors experimenting on him, like he’s a laboratory rat. I was pissed. I was livid. They shift him to Intensive Care and visitors are not allowed in there. We leave.

On the way back we have to participate in another wedding! I really wish I had drugs on me, I could actually use some. Thankfully this time it’s no one related, just my aunt’s gym instructor’s.

We eat lunch and we are off, back to base location, to attend the funeral. This time, no one is wearing silk. Almost everyone’s in tears or trying hard to hold back the tears. He was endeared by everyone, a nice man, an educated man, played an instrumental role in keeping the family closely knit. By family, I mean the whole Pulickal clan if I may call it that..

It’s over. Two crazy days, an emotional rollercoaster.

I have a bus to catch in a couple of hours. Followed by an overnight journey back home to Bangalore. We are just about to leave the graveyard and head back to Kochi from where I board my bus. Just saying my final goodbyes to all my uncles and promising to convey their regards to my parents when I am told that there’s another cousin’s wedding in a day’s time.

I smile. I shake hands. I rush to the car and ask my cousin to “Step on it. Get me out of here double quick”.

Crazy isn’t it, had I stuck on for another day, it would have been Four weddings and a Funeral.

My cousin’s speechless. He has to go for that wedding. It literally is Four Weddings and a Funeral for him!

Kerala, no wonder they call it Gods-Own-Country.