Balaji Narasimhan attends a traditional wedding and finds that tucking into two meals, back to back, is not a very wholesome exercise
I love weddings. Though I'm still happy and unmarried (that explains the happy bit) I like eating at weddings.
Most weddings of friends don't fit this category because I refuse to have any truck with those silly buffet reception dinners. Give me food on a nice green vaaza elai (plantain leaf) any day!
u00a0Of course, I hate sitting on the floor to eat anything, but thankfully, most wedding meals are served on tables these days, so I can get the best of both worlds.
Recently, my cousin Hari got married and so I got an opportunity to tuck into a lot of great food. During breakfast, I had four rava idlis, some nice halwa, and some cool pongal. My only regret was that I could only have one helping of the pongal.

Now, my aunt had asked me to be what we call in Tamil as the maapilai tozan or the friend of the groom. Here, tozan means more than just a friend it means somebody who lends a shoulder to the groom, who in all probability is wondering why the hell he is getting married anyway. I know that you may not want my Tamil translations, but please bear with me all will be clear soon.
u00a0I had thought that there was a comfortable hour between my breakfast and the time when I had to play maapilai tozan but, to my horror, my cousin and the priests performing the marriage descended on the dining hall even as I was washing my hands and said that the time was right that is, the time when I was supposed to sit with the groom and eat with him and lend a shoulder if he burst into tears while regretting his lost bachelorhood (thankfully this didn't happen, which is good for me because my cousin is over half a foot taller than me and built to match).
I would like to say that my stomach was in my mouth when I heard that I had to eat again, but this was not true my tummy was so full that it was telling my brain that it was time for some siesta. But these pleas were ignored because I had to sit down for another meal and this time, on the floor, because it was a religious ceremony.

My stomach protested as I sat down, and I had to eat again two more rava idlis, followed by halwa and pongal.
The food was tasty, but I was feeling like Amitabh Bachchan in Do Aur Do Paanch after Shashi Kapoor fed him one poori from each student's plate. Naturally, I didn't like it all that much!
Finally, the meal was over, and I was for a change thankful that there was no more food (just as an aside, I have always eaten a lot, and when people ask me how I still look so thin, I tell them that I have a closet inside my skeleton). And I was so full that I had great difficulty getting up. Frankly, I think that the maapilai tozan needs to have a tozan too!
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