(A truncated and self edited version can be found here
Dear Editor,
It’s been just three days into the week, and what a week it has been already! Nestled between the explosive news pieces of banning condom ads, Ockhi’s horrific aftermath and Rohit’s 200*, was the illustrious affair of the Virat- Anushka wedding (the need to portmanteau couple’s names to make a weird sounding word seems absolutely stupid, but that’s a piece for another day). And what a grand event it was! I’m sure you would have seen the pictures of their wedding online. However, this grandeur hasn’t been awarded the attention it deserves, in my humblest of opinion.
Dear editor, I don’t have to tell you how utterly impossible it is that a private ceremony of such grandeur to escape the scrutinizing eye of a seasoned journalist. Like a hungry mongrel scouring the dustbins for scraps of rotten food, any news channel worth its salt races ahead to squeeze every last bit of information from whatever blurry image/ video footage of the event. For hours on end, day after day for at least two weeks, news channels and print channels pool in their resources in drawing speculations about the couple’s outfit, jewellery, the shoes, the handkerchief, the underwear, the guests, the no shows, the catering, the toilets, the flooring, the light bulbs… Oh, what a delight it usually is to turn on the television at such times! Alas, dear editor, this has not been the case in their wedding, and I think the culprits are the ones I’ve mentioned in the first paragraph of this letter.
But that is not why I’m taking up precious space on your digital platform, dear editor. You see, marriages in India is as complex and convoluted as it gets. It doesn’t matter if the marriage is a high profile one, or that of my maid’s second daughter- there arises a question, like a guest whom no one invited but everyone is secretly pleased to see. A question that travels across the wedding hall at the speed of hushed whispers, carefully skirting the ears of the bride or the groom, but well within the reach of their parents ears, until it finds a voice in the form of a drunk uncle or an aunty who should have been drunk that evening. Or in case of such an acclaimed event- the front page or the prime time slot. Call me a drunk uncle all you want, but it is this very question that has been bothering me for the past day.
You see, dear editor, family is the most important aspect of any family. At the end of the day, the Queen of England is still a wife and a mother. So is my maid’s second daughter. People call me sexist for pointing it out, I do not know why. Maybe because they fail to extrapolate that their husbands are also husbands and fathers. Being a parent and a spouse is no child’s play, dear editor. Take it from me, I’m a family man myself. I am sure you are a family man yourself and I don’t have to explain to you in detail how draining it is to juggle the responsibilities of being a father, a husband and the manager’s personal wag tail. One can only imagine how hard it must be for the fairer sex.
Of all the responsibilities I’ve mentioned in the above paragraph, the one that is worthy of giving up is that of the career. I am sure your intelligent readers must have guessed the question that’s on my mind, so let me get straight to it.
All I want to know, dear editor, will Anushka allow Virat to play Cricket henceforth?
-Yours truly, Dineshan
Dear Editor,
It’s been just three days into the week, and what a week it has been already! Nestled between the explosive news pieces of banning condom ads, Ockhi’s horrific aftermath and Rohit’s 200*, was the illustrious affair of the Virat- Anushka wedding (the need to portmanteau couple’s names to make a weird sounding word seems absolutely stupid, but that’s a piece for another day). And what a grand event it was! I’m sure you would have seen the pictures of their wedding online. However, this grandeur hasn’t been awarded the attention it deserves, in my humblest of opinion.
Dear editor, I don’t have to tell you how utterly impossible it is that a private ceremony of such grandeur to escape the scrutinizing eye of a seasoned journalist. Like a hungry mongrel scouring the dustbins for scraps of rotten food, any news channel worth its salt races ahead to squeeze every last bit of information from whatever blurry image/ video footage of the event. For hours on end, day after day for at least two weeks, news channels and print channels pool in their resources in drawing speculations about the couple’s outfit, jewellery, the shoes, the handkerchief, the underwear, the guests, the no shows, the catering, the toilets, the flooring, the light bulbs… Oh, what a delight it usually is to turn on the television at such times! Alas, dear editor, this has not been the case in their wedding, and I think the culprits are the ones I’ve mentioned in the first paragraph of this letter.
But that is not why I’m taking up precious space on your digital platform, dear editor. You see, marriages in India is as complex and convoluted as it gets. It doesn’t matter if the marriage is a high profile one, or that of my maid’s second daughter- there arises a question, like a guest whom no one invited but everyone is secretly pleased to see. A question that travels across the wedding hall at the speed of hushed whispers, carefully skirting the ears of the bride or the groom, but well within the reach of their parents ears, until it finds a voice in the form of a drunk uncle or an aunty who should have been drunk that evening. Or in case of such an acclaimed event- the front page or the prime time slot. Call me a drunk uncle all you want, but it is this very question that has been bothering me for the past day.
You see, dear editor, family is the most important aspect of any family. At the end of the day, the Queen of England is still a wife and a mother. So is my maid’s second daughter. People call me sexist for pointing it out, I do not know why. Maybe because they fail to extrapolate that their husbands are also husbands and fathers. Being a parent and a spouse is no child’s play, dear editor. Take it from me, I’m a family man myself. I am sure you are a family man yourself and I don’t have to explain to you in detail how draining it is to juggle the responsibilities of being a father, a husband and the manager’s personal wag tail. One can only imagine how hard it must be for the fairer sex.
Of all the responsibilities I’ve mentioned in the above paragraph, the one that is worthy of giving up is that of the career. I am sure your intelligent readers must have guessed the question that’s on my mind, so let me get straight to it.
All I want to know, dear editor, will Anushka allow Virat to play Cricket henceforth?
-Yours truly, Dineshan
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