Weddings

An Analysis of a core tradition.

Weddings are definitely the most hectic yet exciting part of a family and it’s even better when you grow up in a joint family like mine. In the past decade, admittedly our family has become diluted across the world. But there is something about blood, no matter how much you separate a family it’ll fall back together like pieces of puzzles no matter what. After being away from my family for almost 3 years, there was a lot to get used to and it was not just living under one roof.

When you live away from your family, you forget their tempers. And you also forget about your pet peeves. Staying away from your family for 3 years and being crammed with them for 3 weeks is not the ideal situation but we did find our common grounds. When you have to organise a wedding in 2 weeks everybody starts compromising.

I’m not a massive believer in marriage. I’ve always looked at it as a social construct that people follow to continue the inheritance and the celebration as a way of connecting families as well as keeping in touch with your extended families. I’ve gone by months on months not seeing my extended family because there was no funeral or wedding or any sort of social gatherings that would bring us together. But that is one great thing about Nepalese weddings, they go on for ages and that is also the worst thing about it – it goes on for agesssss; my sister’s was five days to be exact, that our family was involved, she probably had a few more days in as the bride.

This is a part of the main wedding ceremonies. Photo credit : Namlo events

One of the reasons I’m writing this blog is because I attended a total of 3 wedding during my time in Nepal. I got severely drunk at two of them and I was an insider responsible for organising a lot of things in one of them, you could call me the “Maid of Honour” of this wedding. This series has a look into the core of these wedding and how all these shenanigans become a part of a culture that has been carried on for years and still has the importance it once held and the meaning behind these traditions.

The fault in our millennials

You hear the term ‘millennials’ a lot these days. This generally refers to the people born roughly between 1982 till the early 2000s. This is the generation Y that grew up with the internet. When I was growing up, the internet was just starting to become big. I remember starting with a dial up then being upgraded to ADSL and then finally getting a wireless modem. I used to own a phone that didn’t even have WiFi; how crazy is that? Now that you look at the next generation, they can barely fathom not having a phone without WiFi or any access to the internet. Raise your hands if you had the Nokia brick phone and were super excited you could play the snakes all night long. Yepp, it was wild.

But what is the biggest flaw in being a part of this generation? These are my personal opinions and some people may agree or disagree to this, it is completely fine. As a part of this generation, I feel like the people who get the short end of the bargain are the ‘average’ people. And by saying ‘average’ people, I don’t intend to offend anyone, there is nothing wrong in being ‘average’; let me define the term ‘average’ before elaborating further. The word average to me means a mid-point. Something that is in the middle of everything, it doesn’t exceed anything neither does it deceed anything. It’s pretty basic. And with the term ‘average person’ I’m referring to the people who aren’t overly successful or overly frowned upon. In the age of the internet, anything can push you towards either end of the spectrum and you are only recognised if you are a part of either of the spectrum.

I grew up reading Anne Frank’s diary, by the time that I could make sense of anything I was on facebook and getting to know about Mark Zuckerberg and I was this very average girl, who wasn’t really good at anything. I was okay at a lot of things but never really great at anything. I have always been ambitious but ambitions alone doesn’t get you anywhere, you need some talent to take you to places. Throughout school grade 10, I always thought I was good at English, and I was so proud of it and guess what, I’m still good at English, but just as much a person whose 1st language is English. Let’s just say that I’m not Shakespeare or anything. I’m just an average millennial. I’ve been given examples of great people but I don’t think I’ll ever be great at anything, I’ve been told I have potential but I don’t think I’ll reach my full potential. Not because I think I’m incapable of anything but because there are so many benchmarks before I’ve even tried that it’s easier not to try.  It’s like expecting someone to discover gravity again, or to write Romeo and Juliet. It’ll always be compared to the benchmark that is already there. The stakes are too high and if you don’t make it you make a fool of yourself.

You need a degree, you need a job, you need a house, you need a reputation, you need a social life. You just need too much and for the average person like me, it’s too hard.