Wedding Guest SOPs
Have you ever heard of the art of meal enquiring? It is quite a requisite aspect of social etiquette, especially in weddings of the traditional kind. By that The Man from Madras Musings means those festivities associated with a marriage where the guests are invited to a sit-down meal, served on a plantain leaf. Such a social grace is not part of the more essential wedding events these days such as the one where hands are anointed with henna or the other one with a musical name where the idea is to make everyone go deaf with loud volume, louder percussion and loudest singing. MMM steers clear of the first as it is essentially a ladies’ event and as for the second, he considers it an excrescence of recent import where apart from the noise, the general darkness and strobe lighting can drive anyone with defective vision completely mad. MMM being the kind that is somewhat visually afflicted, he abhors these events. As he does songs that seem to have lyrics comprising only shava, mahive, balleballe and other such traditional Tamil expressions.
It is therefore usually at the actual wedding or at the formal reception in the evening that you find MMM at his best. Not that it matters, for as MMM reflects often, the bride and groom will definitely tie the knot whether MMM attends or not. Unfortunately for MMM, his good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO), believes wedding invites are sacrosanct and need to be honoured at all costs. And so, MMM tags along, avoiding the henna and musical events as far as possible but registering a token presence at the others. And even in these, MMM has some standard operating procedures.
He avoids the queue to go and greet the newlyweds and after registering his attendance with the parents of the couple, he usually heads to the food or stages a quiet exit. Experience has taught MMM that it is quite useless spending time in queuing to greet the newlyweds. MMM has reached an age where he invariably knows only the parents and hardly ever the bridal couple. It has also been MMM’s experience that the father/mother of the bride/groom, all along on stage relentlessly introducing the guests to the newlyweds, will suddenly vanish from sight just when it is MMM’s turn! And MMM will have to introduce himself to the bride and groom – always a nerve-wracking process and he usually has the vaguest of ideas as to whether he is an invitee of the bride’s parents or that of the groom. This is largely because MMM’s friendships usually do not extend to finding out how many children a person has, what their names, gender, preferred pronouns, etc. are. Beyond extending a benign goodwill to gen-next, MMM goes no further. SWMBO says MMM is terribly self-centred but MMM in this one matter, begs to differ. He simply has no curiosity.
MMM also has another rule – he carries no gifts if the newlyweds are affluent. There is no point in adding another Thanjavur painting, a tray or a set of bed linen to someone’s collection that is already brimming with these. Cash is of course out of question and so flowers are the only option. MMM would love to say it with flowers but here SWMBO draws the line – she believes flowers to be a waste. And so MMM considers his presence to be the sole present (apart from SWMBO of course) and goes ahead. His presence is of the yessence – as he has often heard it expressed in this our land.
The Etiquette of Meal Enquiring
Which brings The Man from Madras Musings back to the topic of meal enquiring. This as MMM said, is done when guests are seated at a meal. Friends and relatives of the host family then walk between the lines of tables and chairs and ask the diners if they are being taken care of, or if they need anything. Generally most guests nod back and continue eating but there are some absolute bounders who make a demand or two – asking for a second helping of some dish, or even worse, requesting that a sweet or two be packed for the long journey home. MMM would be hopeless at a task such as meal enquiring. He would never have the nerve to ask anyone if they needed anything for the simple reason that if they did, MMM would have no idea where to get what they wanted.
Which reminds MMM of a cousin’s maiden (and probably only) experience of meal enquiring. He sallied forth confidently at lunch and decided to do it with a difference. He memorised the menu and as he meal enquired, he named a specific dish or two and asked the guests if these had been served and whether they would like some more of the same. To a man (and woman), everyone said the dishes had not been served and they would very much like to have some. Puzzled, cousin went to the kitchen to enquire only to have the head cook tell him that what he had memorised was the breakfast menu while what was in progress then was lunch!
But be that as it may, let MMM relate what happened at a recent society wedding. MMM and his good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO) were in attendance and seeing MMM restless and bored, SWMBO suggested that he better go and have his lunch. And off MMM went, in the company of some friends. But such was the crush at the dining hall door that MMM got separated from his herd and sat in another table squashed in a corner left by some matrons who by their size seemed to be professional wedding attendees and regular diners out. Adding to MMM’s discomfiture was the woman next to MMM who had an unfortunate habit of shaking her leg which led to the entire table vibrating and the contents of her leaf gradually moving towards MMM’s. But by the quick expedient of building a wall of water bottle, napkin and paper cups, MMM stayed the flood.
It was at this juncture that one of the duchesses that our kind hostess had asked to meal enquire on her behalf, made her appearance. Sashaying down the corridor she paused at near about where MMM was, looked at him momentarily with hauteur and then beamed at the lady next, asking her if everything had come and if all was well. The lady beamed back and said all was indeed well, not pausing the rattling of the table even for a moment. The duchess then swept her eyes over MMM and then asked the lady if MMM was her doctor husband. This set off MMM on a mental query – did the lady next have husbands in multiple professions as in engineer husband, lawyer husband, etc.? MMM had visions of them being kept in neat dockets, to be pulled out when needed.
He awoke from his reverie to find the woman thus asked had hotly denied any connect with MMM (this lack of affection was mutual) and the duchess was now standing before MMM and asking as to how he was related to whom, etc.
To this MMM simply replied he was the husband of SWMBO. The effect was instantaneous. The duchess, thus far the Snow Queen, now became the fairy godmother. She beamed at MMM. “SWMBO’s husband! Why sir, you are quite the celebrity. I know of you but as to what you do, I don’t know.” MMM replied that he too did not know. But he realised, that being the husband of SWMBO was enough. Her Grace then left, after enquiring if MMM was having a good time. The rest of the meal was uneventful barring the rattling of the table.
– MMM