Click here for more...


Click here for more...


VOL. XXIII NO. 21, February 16-28, 2014
Short 'N' Snappy

Mega invitations for mega weddings

'Tis the season of wedding bells. In the considered view of The Man from Madras Musings, the season’s population can be divided into three groups – the first which is getting married, the second which is in-charge of conducting the weddings, and the third which is attending them. Of the third variety, there are sub-groups: the ones that love attending weddings and cannot be kept away from them short of imprisonment, the second that takes them as a matter of duty and breezes in and out, and the third that grumbles and groans. The last one is rather like the wedding guest in Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, beating his breast over what is a joyful occasion.

But what MMM has chosen to ponder over in this missive of his is not so much the wedding but the invitation card which, rather like the events themselves, have become bigger and bulkier, though not any way better. There was a time when invitation cards were two-sided, oblong, pink on the outside and yellow on the inside, and when folded twice, could slip into a small envelope. These were none too great on the eye, and as for reading the text, which was blue on the pink and green on the yellow, you had to have near-perfect vision to manage it. But they were functional. You could identify a wedding invite from a distance though you may not have been able to read the text at close quarters. The printing process was simple as well. You rushed off to the nearest alley and identified a one-room printer in whose backyard an assistant operated a treadle press. One proof later, the cards were with you. Then all that was needed was to write the addresses on the envelopes, daub the corners with turmeric and then, ho, to the post office.

The whole thing has become hugely complicated now. These days, an invitation card is not one unless it is half the size of a window, as thick as a telephone directory and is borne in by a staggering set of slaves. Entrusting it to the postal system, which must be still handling mails in sacks, is clearly out of question. What would happen to the tinsel, the gilt edgings, the tassels and the pasted colour stones if these were unceremoniously dumped in sacks, hauled around by postmen and then pushed into letter boxes? The mind boggles.

These extra large cards, with a whole lot of shiny add-ons (MMM understands that the technical term for these iridescent things is ‘bling’), when opened, become several cards, each one colour coded for a particular auxiliary event, all of them adjuncts to the wedding proper. If this is not enough, some cards have a book explaining most unnecessarily the entire process of the wedding. Seriously, who is interested in knowing all this, apart from some research scholar in the United States of America? The bride and bridegroom have other things on their minds, the parents are probably calculating the expense and the guests are interested in the food.

What most of these new bling cards overlook is plain readability. By the time you manage to evade the gold-splattered gods, the ornate borders, and the pietra-dura inlay work to locate who is marrying whom, the wedding is probably over. And as for storing these cards till the actual day of the event, forget it. There was a time when invitations used to comfortably fit into mail-holders. The ones of today don’t fit into any receptacle including desk drawers. And woe betides you if the thicker ones fall on your toe accidentally.

Discovering credit-worthiness

Given the exhaustive process the system goes through, The Man from Madras Musings has always wondered at the way credit card companies lament about defaulters. In all his innocence, MMM thought that these due diligence assessments are done by gimlet-eyed detectives who can identify a potential fraudster with ease. But the process of verification (or verivification as MMM has heard it referred to) is so ham-handed that MMM is fairly certain that it is done with only one objective – to irritate the applicant.

MMM has all along been happy with just one credit card. He is not one of those men who have wallets bulging with plastic money. But came a day when having seen an advertisement for a new card, MMM succumbed. He duly filled in the form and signed at as many as 57 different places on it. At the end of it, the tied and heavily cologned representative smiled and assured MMM that that was all and the card would be on its way after a simple verification. Little did MMM know that he was embarking on something that would make Odysseus journeys simple in comparison.

It all began with a phone call where the caller, after wishing MMM a ‘very good morning’, asked MMM’s name. This after having begun the call with the words ‘Very good morning Mr MMM’. A day later came yet another call that wanted to have MMM’s address. MMM had just given the door number when the caller rang off, having thanked him for the information. A day later came yet another call, asking for the street name. When MMM asked as to why the caller of the previous day could not have taken down this information, there was a stunned silence at the other end as though nobody had ever thought of this.

A couple of days later, when MMM was out earning his daily bread, there was a fourth call. The caller, this time a stentorian male voice, wanted to know ‘at least two prominent landmarks’ near MMM’s house. When asked why, the voice said it was on its way to call on MMM and was actually on the road where MMM’s house stood but could not locate the building. When MMM replied that he was not at home just then, the voice was disappointed. Meeting MMM was apparently the ambition of a lifetime for the voice and by not being at home, MMM had clearly broken the voice’s heart. When MMM asked rather tartly if the voice expected MMM to be at home at all hours, the voice rang off without an explanation.

The last straw was the fifth caller. This one after having cheerily wished MMM a ‘very good morning’ asked MMM if he was sure of all the facts that he had furnished in the application form. It then said it, the voice, was bound by rules to get verbal confirmation from MMM for a few random entries in the form. MMM asked it to go ahead. The first question, without the batting of an eyelid, was whether MMM had entered the ‘correct father’s name’.

Educationist, educate thyself

The Man from Madras Musings often walks by an education institution run by a Holy Order. The walls are now inscribed with biblical quotes, no doubt to keep posters at bay. But someone ought to have paid attention to the spellings.

-MMM

Please click here to support the Heritage Act
OUR ADDRESSES

In this issue

The sorry state of our Fort
What the Law proposes the hawkers duly dispose
A mistress-maid case of long, long ago
An Indo-Ceylon dream of the 20th Century
Tales from History to Degree Coffee
The Early Days of Koothu-p Pattarai
The Mylapore Fest

Our Regulars

Short 'N' Snappy
Readers Write
Quizzin' With Ram'nan
Dates for Your Diary
Madras Eye

Archives

Download PDF