The Wedding Season is upon us. Like an ancient virus that is resistant to all advances in modern medicine, the WS hits at a certain time of year and is pretty much ubiquitous. You can’t throw a tantrum without hitting a mehdni or dholki or hotel reception somewhere in the vicinity. The roads are choked with cars carrying the bejeweled and the bedecked, all in sharp contrast to my own disgruntled and resentful face as I drive to these events (and sweep into the marquee like a heinous Hades). Many years ago I promised that I wouldn’t attend a wedding unless I knew the bride and groom personally, which seemed like a fail-proof plan until last year, which is when most of my acquaintances started getting married. The impending nuptials of one’s friends are among the things that make being thirty suck.
Lahori weddings can often seem like impersonal displays of societal plumage, aimed less at celebrating a couple and their union than at the size of the J&S tents. I thought things would be different if the person getting married was a close friend but it turns out not. Things remain as impersonal as ever. Every family has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of adolescent cousins who descend on a wedding house like a troupe of dancing gypsies, obsessively swinging their arms and twisting their torsos in accordance with the latest Bollywood numbers. If weddings were the ocean, these cousins would be the plankton that drive the ecosystem. Without them, weddings would just involve old people looking at a young couple on a stage.
My friend was marrying into a slightly conservative family, which made the wedding an exercise in contrast; the men were bearded with prayer-marks on their foreheads, and many of the women from the girls’ side came to the wedding wearing hijabs and naqabs. This wasn’t of particular interest to me, except that on the wedding reception, as I hung around the stage, I overheard literally dozens of women making fairly risqué and downright invasive references to the couple’s wedding night. How odd, I thought. Surely they must know they are talking about sex, right? Why is a wedding reception the right place to talk about it? What changes at a wedding that makes it OK for a middle-aged woman to lean over and ask if the groom is “functioning down there”, when at any other occasion she’d turn pink at the mere whisper of a gentleman’s genitals?
My own shock at hearing such talk is itself an indicator of just how divorced sex and the wedding are in public discourse. A few years ago a friend regaled me with a story about when she was trying to plan her best friend’s bridal shower. She ordered a cake in a fairly rude shape and as a joke wanted to decorate it with some gag gifts. She went from store to store, asking if they carried condoms. Several places just looked away guiltily and mumbled that they didn’t. Finally she went to a pharmacy.
Friend: “Listen, does your store carry condoms?”
Assistant (hesitantly, looking around): “Um….yes.”
Friend (pleased): “OK.”
*pause*
Friend: “Well, can I get them?””
Assistant: “For you?”
Friend (angrily): “Why?”
Assistant: “No reason.”
*Assistant eyes her suspiciously, reaches under table and pulls out two packets, hides them under newspaper on counter*
Assistant (hushed tones): “Here…”
Friend: “They’re condoms, not drugs. Which other colors do you have?”
Assistant (aghast): “Other…”
Friend: “Colors, yes.”
*Assistant pauses, disappears under counter and reappears with one more packet*
Assistant: “Madam we have these colors only.”
Friend: “Fine. I’ll take them. But I need some more.”
*Assistant slides over a pack of three across the counter*
Friend: “No, I need more.”
Assistant: “How many more?”
Friend: “80 packets.”
Eventually she walked out of that store with a bagful of Extra-Large condoms and never went back again, more for the assistant’s sake than hers. But I digress.
Weddings have even started breeding political gossip. The country’s ovaries burst recently over rumors that Imran Khan had been secretly married to a meteorologist, described universally (with a dollop of misogyny) as a “divorced mother of three.” Many indignant Insafians (on my Facebook) asked why anyone should care and how odd it was for the news to be circulating in the first place. That’s ridiculous. That stupid man got on a container months ago to announce that his marital status is tied to the fate of Pakistan. He is the one who brought his personal life into public discourse. It makes him seem cool and relatable to the sad and pathetic. That people are talking about it now is part of an obvious plan.
Still, all the gossip did get me thinking about what a marital status means for our political leaders and in particular their spouses. I know we have had a memorable First Husband, but I honestly can’t recall the wives of our leaders with any clarity. Do we even have a First Lady position? Does the wife of a president or prime minster technically have any official duties? Does Begum Sharif have, like, an office where she can Skype with Michelle Obama?
I used to hope they did until I saw American TV shows about presidents. In these shows, powerful people are often known by the acronyms of their positions. The American president is therefore called POTUS, short for The President of the United States. The first Lady gets the lovely name FLOTUS, First Lady of the United States.
Well, in consonance with the wedding season, and under the auspicious sign of yet another political marriage, I hereby propose an acronym for the First Lady of Pakistan: FLOP.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com and follow @fkantawala on twitter
The impending nuptials of one's friends are among the things that make being thirty suck
Lahori weddings can often seem like impersonal displays of societal plumage, aimed less at celebrating a couple and their union than at the size of the J&S tents. I thought things would be different if the person getting married was a close friend but it turns out not. Things remain as impersonal as ever. Every family has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of adolescent cousins who descend on a wedding house like a troupe of dancing gypsies, obsessively swinging their arms and twisting their torsos in accordance with the latest Bollywood numbers. If weddings were the ocean, these cousins would be the plankton that drive the ecosystem. Without them, weddings would just involve old people looking at a young couple on a stage.
My friend was marrying into a slightly conservative family, which made the wedding an exercise in contrast; the men were bearded with prayer-marks on their foreheads, and many of the women from the girls’ side came to the wedding wearing hijabs and naqabs. This wasn’t of particular interest to me, except that on the wedding reception, as I hung around the stage, I overheard literally dozens of women making fairly risqué and downright invasive references to the couple’s wedding night. How odd, I thought. Surely they must know they are talking about sex, right? Why is a wedding reception the right place to talk about it? What changes at a wedding that makes it OK for a middle-aged woman to lean over and ask if the groom is “functioning down there”, when at any other occasion she’d turn pink at the mere whisper of a gentleman’s genitals?
My own shock at hearing such talk is itself an indicator of just how divorced sex and the wedding are in public discourse. A few years ago a friend regaled me with a story about when she was trying to plan her best friend’s bridal shower. She ordered a cake in a fairly rude shape and as a joke wanted to decorate it with some gag gifts. She went from store to store, asking if they carried condoms. Several places just looked away guiltily and mumbled that they didn’t. Finally she went to a pharmacy.
Friend: “Listen, does your store carry condoms?”
Assistant (hesitantly, looking around): “Um….yes.”
Friend (pleased): “OK.”
*pause*
Friend: “Well, can I get them?””
Assistant: “For you?”
Friend (angrily): “Why?”
Assistant: “No reason.”
*Assistant eyes her suspiciously, reaches under table and pulls out two packets, hides them under newspaper on counter*
Assistant (hushed tones): “Here…”
Friend: “They’re condoms, not drugs. Which other colors do you have?”
Assistant (aghast): “Other…”
Friend: “Colors, yes.”
*Assistant pauses, disappears under counter and reappears with one more packet*
Assistant: “Madam we have these colors only.”
Friend: “Fine. I’ll take them. But I need some more.”
*Assistant slides over a pack of three across the counter*
Friend: “No, I need more.”
Assistant: “How many more?”
Friend: “80 packets.”
Eventually she walked out of that store with a bagful of Extra-Large condoms and never went back again, more for the assistant’s sake than hers. But I digress.
Weddings have even started breeding political gossip. The country’s ovaries burst recently over rumors that Imran Khan had been secretly married to a meteorologist, described universally (with a dollop of misogyny) as a “divorced mother of three.” Many indignant Insafians (on my Facebook) asked why anyone should care and how odd it was for the news to be circulating in the first place. That’s ridiculous. That stupid man got on a container months ago to announce that his marital status is tied to the fate of Pakistan. He is the one who brought his personal life into public discourse. It makes him seem cool and relatable to the sad and pathetic. That people are talking about it now is part of an obvious plan.
Still, all the gossip did get me thinking about what a marital status means for our political leaders and in particular their spouses. I know we have had a memorable First Husband, but I honestly can’t recall the wives of our leaders with any clarity. Do we even have a First Lady position? Does the wife of a president or prime minster technically have any official duties? Does Begum Sharif have, like, an office where she can Skype with Michelle Obama?
I used to hope they did until I saw American TV shows about presidents. In these shows, powerful people are often known by the acronyms of their positions. The American president is therefore called POTUS, short for The President of the United States. The first Lady gets the lovely name FLOTUS, First Lady of the United States.
Well, in consonance with the wedding season, and under the auspicious sign of yet another political marriage, I hereby propose an acronym for the First Lady of Pakistan: FLOP.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com and follow @fkantawala on twitter