It’s wedding time again in the next generation of our family. Something that gets us really excited as we look forward to siblings and nieces and nephews and their children getting together. We anticipate many meetings and many hours spent laughing and joking — as we recall doing during other weddings.
However, since this wedding has been sprang upon us at relatively short notice, some of us are a little confused about what lies on the cards. What are the ceremonies? Where will they happen? How long will they go on?
When we meet to clear our doubts, however, we digress and begin to reminisce about the last wedding in the family five years ago — and the ones before that — until we go back in time to our own weddings.
Suddenly, long forgotten grievances that we didn’t think anyone should or could carry around, come to the surface. Someone says indignantly, “What, he’s coming all the way across the globe at such short notice? He never took the trouble to fly down for our wedding — and I wanted him to be my best man!”
Another mopes, almost four decades after the event: “Dad refused to let me have a two-day affair, the way I would have liked it. He crowded everything into one day — don’t I look exhausted in our wedding photographs?” To prove it, old albums are pulled out and, since we cannot see anything but a glow of happiness on the couple’s faces under the mountains of flowers, the discussion turns to decorations — and then, wedding expenses.
Siblings pull out magnifying glasses to compare old photographs — and venue and decor — and wonder why more was spent on one wedding than on the other.
Short end of the stick
“I can understand. Maybe Dad couldn’t afford two weddings within the space of one year,” says the one who feels she received the short end of the stick, “but now YOU owe me flowers every week for at least a year.”
“What do you mean, ‘Dad’ couldn’t afford it?” asks another sibling, lower down on the food chain. “Dad paid for your weddings? How unfair! He gave me a long bill for mine ... and I spent years clearing it ...!”
“No, he didn’t give you a long bill and you didn’t spend years repaying him,” clarifies his spouse, who is not necessarily more financially savvy, but definitely has a longer memory, especially where grievances are concerned. “Advance payment was made to him and we spent years collecting that money — so what he gave us was not a “bill” to be paid but an “account” of expenses incurred!”
With tempers beginning to flare, it is time to get onto safer ground and the topic turns to wedding gifts — but almost at once there is discontent over that too. “What? Dad gave you a fridge in addition to spending on your wedding? He didn’t give us anything — in fact, we left many gifts behind because we couldn’t carry them with us — and by the time we returned the next year, they had disappeared from the storeroom. I think one or all of you still owe us some dozen steel utensils and brass ornaments ...”
The rest of the not-to-be-trifled-with siblings would have butted in and made it appear that reparations were owed to them too, but luckily, the younger generation steered the conversation back to the present day — and present confusions.
Simmering resentments were transferred to the back burner and — since the offending “Dad” was no longer there to answer for what he had done or what he had failed to do, we went back to looking to the future — and hoping that now that it was our turn, we could please all, appease all, and play fair — and if not, at least make it appear so!
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.