O teri! Tu kaun?

Lattu dekha hai, lattu? Ya, English mein jisko top bolte hain? That’s how my head’s been spinning for months, jab se is silly show Dil Ki Nazar Se Khoobsurat (Sony) mein Aaradhya mistakenly marries Madhav and is now, at the brink of divorce, realising that she’s in love with her husband.

I don’t care whether they divorce or do the disco. What I’m concerned with is this post-phere, pre-suhaag raat confusion. It’s a sadiyon purani parampara in our soaps — in Saath Nibhana Saathiya (Star), Aham married Gopi and then realised that she is illiterate; in Diya Aur Baati Hum (Star), Sandhya married Sooraj thinking he’s an MBA, jabki Suraj was a ninth standard-pass laddoo maker; in Sasural Simar Ka (Colors), Roli takes her sister’s place in the mandap.
Okay, chalo, I understand that you don’t know everything about the ladka/ladki you are marrying. But to go through all the shaadi rasams and ceremonies for days and then go, “O teri! Tu kaun?” is, as angrez log say, bollocks.
How can a girl or a boy marry the wrong person in Bharat desh? Haven’t the creative heads of our TV channels attended a single Indian wedding? Where is the nano, nanna-munna, nikka-sa chance of the bride and groom not seeing each other before the wedding? Where, really, where?
Let’s look at the wedding day itself, when all routes, buses, lamp posts, cars leading to the shaadi venue are plastered with posters screaming “Megha Weds Madhav”. Okay, I agree, that the bride is always on her way to the beauty parlour when the baraat lands at her doorstep, but the poor dulha, in his tight shervani with dupatta and annoying tassels ticking his face which he keeps lifting, in true ghunghat style, to scream, “Abe Bittu, phone laga na Megha ko. Kab tak ghodi pe baitha rahoonga?” knows who he is marrying.
And while it’s true that Bittu, who has a 500-rupee note in his mouth which Pammy aunty is trying to pluck with her pink lips, hands the dulha a plastic glass of rum-no-coke and with just a shake of his head says, “Pee-le aur mujhe dance pe chance marne de,” he too knows who is getting married to whom.
So the ghodi is fidgeting and the dulha is doing namaste to all, including his ghodi-walla and mother, whose blood pressure could lift the entire mandap with the baratis, and dulhan's daddy’s pagri shivers every time mummyji stares at him, but they all know who is getting married to whom.
And eventually, after the pandit has changed the mahurat five times, the girl will maro her grand entry. She arrives in a lehenga that weighs as much as the gaddi her daddyji is gifting her. Her friends lift it, from here and there, and her sister’s hand is holding her head, lest it tilts back and her neck snaps with the weight of the fake hair, heavy dupatta, mang-tikka and flowers. All the baratis are meant to see her, admire her and weep. That’s the whole point of the Indian wedding!
As the bride walks up to the wedding stage, she waves to the boy, who is now sprawled on the red velvet wedding sofa while little boys are plucking marigold flowers from the mandap decoration and aiming them at him. Bride sees this and makes a face that will haunt the boys for the rest of their lives. They scamper away to the ice-cream counter. They too know who is getting married to whom.
And when the bride finally gets onto the stage and stands next to her Jaanu, i.e. the groom, who has by now had seven large pegs, is swinging on his feet and touching everyone’s feet, including the cameraman and videographer’s, they know who they are marrying. It’s another thing that they may not know why. But they know who.