Post-nuptials Photography

I have a problem with just-married people, who try to impose their bliss on me. The most annoying way of doing that is making me see their post-wedding/honeymoon photos. I am glad about the fact that I know very few people having such dangerous inclination to share their post-nuptials photography. One such example is my cousin; she got recently married and has moved abroad with her dear hubby (bubby, babbu, sweety, jaan, shonu...etc. How I came to know about these aliases will appear later in the text)

I enjoyed being at her wedding; it was grand and was planned to inspire awe in the attendees. Money was generously spent. In short, it was like any other flamboyant NRI wedding. I knew right then that this was just the beginning of a ‘filmy’ episode, the photos of which I would be coerced to witness under some sense of family obligation. Now it has been a month since her wedding, and I got to know that she is doing just great. I had sent a few emails to ask about how she was doing, but received no replies. She almost vanished after her wedding only to emerge a few days ago when I got four emails from her. Perhaps the spell of honeymoon had started wearing off…I was wrong.

The photos were in staggering numbers. I must say the she and her hubby have a nice apartment with a beautiful view, and honestly that was all I was curious about. After a few interesting pictures, I saw what I was getting into. There were photos of her in different costumes trying to mimic the bridal look. Okay, we know how happy you are to be married!!! Then came some photos of mehendi; mehendi in Australia, okay it is very great of you to have found mehendi there and drawn it all by yourself; anyway, I wasn’t interested.

Next were her photos with exotic Indian outfits in every corner of the new apartment (except the washrooms), and in different poses, trying hard to look replete with ecstasy because….well…she was happily married now. I had reached my threshold of boredom but I had to view these photos because my parents wanted to see all of them, and I being the only computer literate, had to take them through all of the 387 photos.

Now came the photos of the walls having my cousin’s posters. Yes you read it right, posters! Like the ones you might have seen of Aish, Salman, Ferrari and other such entities, hung on the walls of people who are die-hard aficionados, usually in their teens. The posters had my cousins with plenty of histrionics, trying to pose with well-attempted facial expressions radiating bliss. Needless to mention about a complete spectrum of wardrobe. This idea of posters also hit the funny bone of my parents and they were slowly getting uninterested because clearly, humor wasn’t the intention of watching the photos.

After the posters, came smaller posters with postcard size photos of her alongside saccharine, mushy and overly sentimental messages of love. The occasion was valentine’s day!! So, we were at one level higher from the posters. I was visibly anxious now. I just didn’t want to know what she and hubby (the everlasting lovers) decided to click on the lover’s day. As we saw the photos, my father suddenly grew curious about what was being written on the messages. He is more unpredictable than me and has an impressive track record of aggravating my social awkwardness; be it at home or otherwise. The messages grew more intimate (this is when I came across the words mentioned in the first paragraph; babbu, manu, monu, shona etc). I was trying hard to attract my parent's attention to other attractive things on the wall like the paint, the bigger poster that we saw in the previous cluster of photos. Or I talked about what I saw hanging on the walls in European homes when I was abroad. My mom had already started objecting to these valentine posters and wanted me to skim over the photos fast so that she could view the next group. The words changed from love, promise, togetherness to hugs, cuddles, and cheeks. When words like kisses and touching started coming on the screen, my father gave up too. According to him, this was too personal to have been snapshotted and sent across to people. I looked at him and thought what kind of guy he would have been in his college days.

After this scant relief, we were ushered to the next higher level of husband-wife companionship. Photos of the bed!! In a very brief moment over the first photo, I saw my cousin sitting on the middle of the bed with her hubby having his arm around her shoulder, both wearing loose and comfortable clothing vaguely resembling sleepwear, and there was a glowing pink candle surrounded by rose petals on the side table. With utmost swiftness (I am proud about this quality of mine!) I switched off the modem and announced to my parents that the broadband connection had been lost.

Thereafter, I quickly excused myself to get something to eat and disappeared from the scene not forgetting to close the browser. They haven’t mentioned about the photos since, and I think they never will. However if they do, I think our internet connection will have to stay shut.