Of marriages and occasions

Few weeks back we attended a wedding reception of a close relative. They had booked a huge venue, a place that would appeal to political parties for conducting their meets and events. It was the starting point of several things that made me realize how much weddings and especially the facilities at the venues have undergone a change. As a kid I used to hate attending these events primarily because of the seating arrangements especially the chairs at the dining halls. They were made of wood and were of foldable type, that came in uniform size. It made them immensely uncomfortable for anyone who is taller than usual or short/fat. I belonged to the latter category and even before knowing about the term “ergonomics” I suffered from an incorrect design. While eating, the contents on the plantain leaf would either be out of reach for me or would be floating down on to my trousers. And at times the sides wouldn’t be keeled properly and would keep pinching. You may wonder how many marriages I might’ve attended to have such a list of issues. It is not just marriages but any occasion that involved a gathering typically had a dining hall which had the listed issues. Unless dragged into, I began to avoid these events and cut to couple of decades, such occasions diminished gradually either for lack of need or due to budget constraints. Corona made a clean sweep of all possible events for the last 3 years. Now with this backdrop, if you read the first line again, it would show the significance of the “awe” behind that statement.

We stepped into the reception hall that resembled the ball room dance floor from Harry Potter!! There were drones flying over our hear, Flat screen Plasmas hanging on every pillar and place that could hold a nail, the chairs had better designed dress than me is a side story for a different post. Junior was confused for a moment whether he came to some amusement park or for a family function. He enjoyed the drones and chased behind his own image across every TV on the wall. There was a weird looking rubber substance along the aisle chairs, all the way till dais. Was wondering what the use is and why they would’ve covered the carpet with such a weird substance. The answer came in a few seconds after the bride/groom made their entry. Suddenly there was a mechanical noise and the rubber thingy started growing big. It soon took the shape of a heart and transformed into an arch like opening covering the center of the hall. The bride and groom had the pass through it to reach the dais. Before they could cross it, suddenly there were couple of guys and gals in matching costume, who came out of nowhere and started dancing to the blasting hits, played by the DJ on cue. To their credit, they really did dance well and carried the name, address, IP address, logo, pin code, IFSC code, QR code of their club on their tee shirts. Finally, the would be couple reached the dais and immediately there was a huge line that formed on both sides for giving presents and photo session. They must’ve done some good analysis before setting up the arrangement I guess, for the queue started on left side of the dais, reached the center for present/photo, and left the dais by its right side, which took them to the dining hall.

In the dining hall, there were hardly any chair as it was buffet style. The first section consisted of fruits, vegetables all freshly cut which confused me for a moment whether it was dining hall or kitchen. Later only realized it was salad section and I immediately moved towards the cooked food area rather than the ingredients arranged like Botanical garden. There were several combinations of North and South Indian variety of dishes that even if take a spoonful of each dish I would’ve needed more hands than Octo Octavius from Spiderman 2. After doing dip stick and sampling of all good-looking dishes possible, finally reached the dessert section which was never deserted even for a single second since it opened. They had more ice than Antarctic and all glaciers possible with an army of people breaking them into single/multiple scoops every second. The beeda paan section was so crowded, for a moment I was confused if that was the real reason for so many people attending!! On the way home was wondering the last time I ever attended such an event other than my own wedding!! Must’ve been a long while back for I couldn’t quite follow the setup. Guess if not all, most of these are quite common nowadays and it resembles one huge project implementation on its GO-LIVE date, with so many teams operating in tandem to deliver the best possible result.