Week 1518 - We are the Extras, the Supporting Cast, the Padding

The Concept Explained

Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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It is wedding season again with destination weddings, local weddings and local destination weddings.

The kids getting married are in their 20s and early 30s. And unless you are very close to the kid, the invitation is from the parent, who is likely a friend or colleague or relative. If it is a big wedding/reception of more than 500-1000 people, it makes no difference whether you, a 50 plus person turns up or not. Oh sure, the friend/colleague/relative might remember whether you came or not, but if the effort to attend the sangeet/wedding/reception is far out of proportion (e.g. going to Marol on a working evening from King’s Circle - which would be 2 hours each way), then you can just ditch the event and no one really cares.

It is with the smaller ones, those with 100-150-200 people, where we realize our place in the scheme of things.

These 20 year olds don't get tired. They can drink the night away. They don't need sleep. They can stay 10 km away from the venue in AirBnBs or other accommodation and still show up on time (not the time printed in the invite but the time the bride and groom will show up, because they are clued in and know exactly when what is going to actually happen, while we 50-year olds will always have to wait). 

And they can’t seem to imagine that those of us in our 50s and 60s are no longer 20 and 30 years old. We need our sleep and creature comforts. Our drinking capacity has seriously gone down. We have energy issues. We ache and pain in a lot of places and it is often tough to walk long distances from one end to another or climb stairs in steep castles or wait for cars and buses to ferry us from one place to another. And we can no longer dance in the sangeet to save our ass.

It is their wedding, calibrated to their stamina and timings, not ours and everything is arranged for them to make memories and have fun. The 20-year-olds would be more than happy having just their other 20-year-old friends and cousins and siblings participating in the celebration with very close relatives and the parents. But, in today’s day and age, that would be a list of not more than 25-30, at best 50 people in the ground or room or castle or church or wherever the sangeet or wedding or reception is being held, which makes for poor optics and looks sad for an Indian event and so you still need to fill up the room with at least 100-150-200 people, which can only happen if the parents invite their friends and not-immediate relatives. 

We are the extras, the supporting cast. We provide the padding. We are like the people with wine glasses at the periphery of a Bollywood song, smiling away at the bride and groom dancing or getting married (like the Dard-e-Dil song from Karz), while the camera pans past us us once in a while to show how happy we are. And it’s fine. And then, every now and then, there's a dance floor for us to shake a leg, after which we must move on and disappear and leave the floor to the kids for their after-parties and after-after-parties.

Which is why the real reason we attend these weddings…except for those who genuinely love weddings and go anyway, just to get out of the house and do something with their lives…is because we do it for our friends who have invited us to make sure the kids get a crowd that makes it memorable for them.

We are not important. The kids are. We do all this for our friends. Our friends do it for their kids. And thus the cycle of life continues.