You are cordially not invited

My favorite things in Indian weddings, especially in the South Indian ones, are the flowers. However ornamental the others might seem; roses, orchids, gladiolas… however they tower in splendor and however much they glisten with color, the undefeatable smell of the jasmine ensures it stays in front of them all.

The closely knit, the warms white buds, the secrets within, the proud pale green stalk that form long chains and the clasps that are reluctant to let go…

From the same string of tied flowers, my mother and my maid cut out adequate quantities and weave them onto their hair. Communists I think jasmines are.

When they open, they surely must be whispering secrets- look, the groom is so ugly. Or perhaps- look the bride is plastered under makeup when all she would have needed is us to make her more beautiful.



I understand flower language. They speak the same words as I do.

So when I am getting married, my topmost item on the list - the flowers. My mother irately strikes them away- they are the least of important things she says.

The hall is booked with crisp notes. The cards are printed in erasable ink. The news is told in distorted stories. People come with fake smiles and what they don’t say deafens what they do.

And then the day that wasn’t to be dawns.

People are begged in embarrassed whispers by my family not to come. There isn’t to be a wedding.

Reason as it exists is really flimsy. Like the barely enough saree of a Bollywood heroine- it just refuses to cover the necessary.

So that just leaves us. The flowers that are now dead. And I, wondering whom I will now speak to.