Here comes the bride.
This past week was dedicated to a family wedding. My sisterfriend Ruch got hitched and I was there to drink all the free alcohol. As a bride she was flawless, she had every base covered as far as style went thus reminding me of my own wedding several years before – and how I managed to make one bad decision after another when it came to figuring out my ‘look’. Here now is the story of the biggest fashion fuck up committed by me on my wedding day:
In 2004 I was successfully able to manipulate a man in to marrying me. Now all I had to worry about was what I was going to wear for the actual wedding ceremony. This was a major decision, not just because I wanted to look my best on my wedding day, but because I had no clue where to begin. I am Goan Christian on my dad’s side, although the last time I saw the inside of a church was in New York at Limelight which happens to be an old church converted in to a night club, and on my mothers side I am part Coorg and part Andhra Pradeshi. Having been raised minus a cultural affinity to any part of my heritage I was going to have to come up with a bridal outfit all on my own.
Because I was marrying a Jaat, and because they were hosting the actual wedding ceremony, I figured I would go ethnic, it would be more I in keeping with their sensibilities than a dress, plus not being all that virginal I thought a white gown would be a little much. From past experience I knew it would have to be a sari because many trials and several errors have shown me that with my body type a salwaar/chudidar kameez makes me look like a dude and a ghagra-choli makes me look like a cross-dressing dude . As far as color was concerned I wanted red, that being the color of passion and all, plus it’s the one color that doesn’t bring out the yellow in my skin tone. With these elements in place all I had to do was decide on the overall look of my ensemble.
What did I want to be on my wedding day? Traditional or contemporary? Sexy or conservative? Flashy or low-key? This was important to consider because hair, make-up and jewelry would be dictated entirely by this choice. After much consideration I went with tradition, and having none of my own I went the whole hog, I would wear a South Indian Temple sari. My mother was given this brief via email and dispatched to do her worst.
In preparation for the sari I began to grow out my AnnieLenox style do, my plan was to attach a whole heap of false hair to it so I could have a bun. My blouse was to be a tasteful, bright red, half-sleeved affair, with a plunging back that did not permit the use of a brassiere; it was the only bit of sex appeal I would allow myself that day. To round it all off I had arranged to borrow my friend Anuli’s wedding jewelry because it was beautiful, traditional, and free.
The week before the wedding I was introduced to the groom’s family. My mother-in-law, who had only ever seen me in my regular clothes, was a little concerned, with good reason, about what it is I would wear. I explained my south-Indian themed costume and assured her that the sari in question was ‘very heavy’ which seemed to put her mind at ease. I then proceeded to inform her that south-Indian brides did not cover their heads and hence I would be following suite. I won’t lie, I thought my decision was rather feminist and brave, especially given that telling this to a Jaat mother-in-law was like telling Jesus that you didn’t believe in God.
On the day of the wedding my mother and I rose early and made our way to a ‘beauty parlor’ called Madonna where I was to have my false hair attached. Waiting for me at Madonna was Rajkumar (name changed because I don’t recall what it really was). Rajkumar was a middle-aged, rotund, and slightly effeminate South-Indian man. I was a little afraid of having a man do my hair but his borderline homosexuality made me feel a little better. I stopped feeling better and started feeling worse when his assistant Dorai (name changed because I don’t recall what it really was) marched in with a basket of rather dead looking jasmine flowers and a truck-load of really dead looking false hair. After I made a fuss about the flowers Dorai was dispatched to find more alive looking ones while Rajkumar surveyed me and my stringy hair. I could tell he wasn’t pleased with what he had to work with.
“How you want it?”
“I want a bun”, I answered nervously, “keep it low, on the nape of my neck and then attach the flowers in a circle.” I was hoping that my explanation would suffice, and was kicking myself for not having carried the picture of Feroze Gujral in a jewelry advertisement, which was what I was modeling my hairstyle on.
Rajkumar then went to work. He used what must have been 400 pins to secure what must have been 400 pounds of hair to my head. He weaved, braided, and gelled every lock of hair in to submission. I could not see what was going on behind me but I could feel my head getting heavier. An hour later he was done when in waltzed Dorai with his less dead flowers that were promptly attached to my head. He then stood back, presented me with a hand mirror, and with a flourish swiveled me around to admire his handiwork.
It was a disaster. Attached to the back of my skull was not a graceful little bun as I had envisioned but a gigantic French loaf wreathed in what can only be described as a garland of less dead jasmines.
“It’s very big.” I stammered.
“Actually it looks very nice, very traditional.” This was my mother. Here was a woman who knew that she had one hour to get me back to the hotel and that undoing Rajkumar’s creation was not an option.
With Rajkumar, Dorai and my mother silently pressuring me to let it go I reluctantly gave up the fight, and balancing my head that now weighed several pounds more than usual, stalked out of Madonna. Never to return.
Waiting for us in our room was Anandi and Ruch, my two friends who were in-charge of my make-up and over all state of mind, and my dad.
“Doesn’t her hair look great?” trilled my mother in an effort to pre-empt any sort of cock-up in the form of an honest opinion.
While my dad sat there trying to rearrange his facial features to read neutral rather than horror, my girlfriends, the professional liars that they are, went on and on about how fantastic I looked, and that yes it was a little big but so what, and no it was not utterly ridiculous.
At this point I excused myself and went to the toilet to have a good look at the thing. On the up-side it was so heavy that it had pulled my face back thus acting like a facelift, on the downside however, it wasn’t big, it was enormous – the damn thing was practically the size of my own head. I was devastated, sure I had lived through an 1980’s mullet/AnilKapoorStyle and a plethora of really crappy hair days but did I have to endure one today! But the show had to go on and so I flushed the toilet after my pretend pee and went back outside hoping that Anandi would transform me, and my two heads in to a vision of beauty and glamour.
It is a fact that good foundation and red lipstick will brighten the worst day, and my sari was fantastic. The overall effect made me forget about the calamity on my scalp so when I heard my to-be-husband talking loudly to some friends in the corridor I foolishly decided to get his opinion on how lovely I looked. I rushed out to find him standing there dressed in his wedding finery, turban, sword and all.
“What do you think?”
With the look of someone searching for the least awful thing to say he responded, “You look like a Bharatnatayam dancer.”
I fled back to my room and yelled at my mother, father and both friends. I dared not cry because Anandi had done a rather artistic job of my eyes. Once I was done ranting and raving I calmed down and thought – screw it, at least it’s traditional, now all I have to make sure of is that the photographer doesn’t get any pictures of me in profile.
I needn’t have worried my now over-sized head about that.
When the ceremony began I made my way to the mandap. As I seated myself in front of the ancient pujari, who looked in dire need of a nap, or a drink, or both, my mother-in-law swooped down and threw a spectacular, bejeweled chunni over my head. As far as she was concerned I could take my feminist ideas and shove them where the sun didn’t shine. Or maybe, just maybe she was trying to cover up Rajkumar’s ruin.
God, how this little tale flings me back into the nightmare of your sister/friend angel’s wedding and doing her hair/make up with shaking hands and the screaming heebie jeebies. I was in therapy for 3 months after.
T! I actually remember what a bad mood you were in after!!
Awesome! But could we see some pictures of Rajkumar’s now-famous creation? And do we ever get to hear about your India tour? Are you (in)famous there now too?
Pictures surely needed Radhika….bet u looked lovely and we could do with a bit of cheer