Endae Keralam Ethra Sundaram and a Wedding

Us Cousins

Tomy tying the minnu

Family sans Abhinav

The bride

Dinner the previous night

We left for Kerala from Chennai on the 25th of December, for my cousin's wedding. Tarun and Abhinav, contrary to our fears were at their best behavior in the train. I was excited about the wedding as I was to stand behind my cousin, to fulfill the duties of an elder sister as it is our custom, till the minnu/thali was tied by the groom. On the previous day of the wedding, all of us cousins, stayed at the bride - Anjana’s - place and had a great time – lots of games, gossip and ofcourse food. As my uncle, the bride’s dad, was a building contractor, there were so many people coming and going. We had erected a shamyana outside and hired tables and chairs because the people coming and going would not fit in the house, and also that it was easier to serve them food there, on banana leaves (no need of washing and easily disposable). We too had our dinner there. My mom and aunts were forever in the kitchen, preparing tones of food…breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea, coffee and juice for those people walking into the house in between all this.

The wedding – as in our community – is conducted from the groom’s side. Due to this we had to travel over 120 Kms – one way - by road, from Maramon to Kothamangalam. Lucky for me I left with my cousin in a car early in the morning, to hotel Sicilia (we didn’t dress up from home due to the distance), located at Thodupuzha, to get dressed then to the groom’s church. The rest of family and friends joined us at the church directly.
My cousin Anjana got married to Tomy Thomas. I stood behind my sister and my duties got over once the minnu was tied by Tomy, and from thereon, his sister-in law took over.
The food was lovely.. appam, mutton curry, beef, fish, chicken, pavakka fry, aviyal, thoran, rice, salad, ice cream etc etc….
Then from there close friends and family left to Tomy’s house, to participate in another custom, where the girl goes to the boy’s house for the first time. We were welcomed with cake and wine. After prayers, we started our journey once more, this time back to the bride’s place, where the bride and groom would spend 3 days, after which the bride would go permanently to the groom’s house.

The only difficult part of the wedding was the travel. We traveled over 260 Kms by road My... it was one big journey. The road, had lots of hairpin bends – enough to make our stomach’s lurch and vomit, I think George was the only one in the family who didn’t vomit - and lonely stretches amidst rubber plantations. To top it up, we lost our way a couple of times, adding to the extra kilometers.
The wedding was beautiful, and Tomy a very nice person. Tarun was dressed in a white kurtha and he managed it beautifully, again contrary to my opinion about him.

After that visiting aunts and uncles ( read “all the time eating high calorie food”) and other relatives took up most of our remaining vacation time. It was a lovely trip, Kerala as beautiful as ever, fantastic weather, the vacation lasting close to 20 days and Abhinav’s first Kerala trip.