Just Around the Corner....(Bride Series 1)

Remember the phrase "just around the corner" being taught in school? Somehow I have always found this phrase very interesting and of immense possibilities. The shop is just around the corner, exams are just around the corner, durga pujo is just around the corner, spring is just around the corner....to my young mind the anticipation of wait coming to an end used to loom large. In my imagination I could almost trace the journey of whoever was around the corner, slowly coming to my side of the world and then walking up to my house and knocking. Sometimes I would connect the phrase 'is on us' or 'knocking on us' with this and would literally visualise exams knocking on my mind demanding that I prove what all I have studied so far. Funny how your young mind conjours up certain images and they refuse to budge or reform however old you grow.

Well the important event which is just round the corner (for which I gave this whole background) is my marriage. I am getting married in August and my life right now is revolving around discussing my upcoming marriage, preparing for it, dissecting it, bissecting it, tearing it apart and putting it all back together. I was talking to a friend and a fellow blogger about it yesterday and she suggested that I write about it. Funny now that I think about it, i am really surprised that I have not written about this before considering that now a days all my energy goes into it. Sometimes I confuse whether the marriage is for me or I am for the marriage? The marriage is for me right? The marriage is happening cos I want it to happen. But these marriages have an innate knack of seeping in and overtaking much more space than we are ready to give them. I am not even married just preparing for one and already I feel 'taken over' and all the married ones I am talking to are not really encouraging. For an individualistic space freak like me, marriage being the hugely social and traditional event that it is in India,
is quiet something to digest and accept. Dont get me wrong, I am in love with the guy I am getting married to. My problem lies entirely with the role of the bride. You can think then why I am doing it? Simple reason being it is not my marriage, it is my parents duty, my family's expectation and the same applies for the groom's side.

Frankly I never thought that the very idea of being a bride would be so taxing! But it is and it is stressing me out no end. And by now I have bored most of my friends with all imagined and non imagined troubles, potential pitfalls, clash with my beliefs and politics. I have taken innumerable pledges to take all of it with a pinch of salt and a big bucket of humour. But somehow I go back to having a long face and head swarming with marriage mines. This is making me feel guilty too. Especially since Indranil is so happy about getting married to me. But like I keep telling him that I am not worked up about marrying him, it is the traditional role that I am expected to fit in as a bride which is driving me up the wall.

All my life whatever I have experienced or read, brides are supposed to feel in a certain way-- they are supposed to be happy, coy, shy, eager, enthusiastic etc etc etc, that is if they are getting married to the partner of their choice. Why dont I feel any of it? Somehow I dont feel of any of these things. To me a traditional Indian/Bengali marriage is a collosal waste of money, resouce and time and however much I try to tweak my mental sate it doesnt help. I dont feel happy shopping, planning the menu, drawing the invitation list....all i feel is guilt....guilt of blowing my father's hard money. Guilt of being a traditional girl suddenly after all these years of being a free bird and a radical to boot. Oh well my Libra soul is in a severe spree of indecision and since this is going to for sometime....it is exhausting and stressing me no end, while the clock ticks on and marriage rounds the conner and looms large, fingers lifted about to rap on my door.

This last line reminds me of the poem 'The Listeners' by Walter De la Mare. I am getting literary in confusion :)