The last thing I had in 8 stages in Bengal was a sit down dinner during a wedding (back when people still had them). Lemon(yes they identified that as an item too), radhaballabi, aloor dum, fish, chicken, doi, misthi, paan.
This was of course the “Bengali middle class menu”. Variations were cholar dal and beguni. If the groom had a private sector job (i.e. executive), there would be a fancy item like “fish orly” or “chili pheesh”. If mutton was served, there was a presumption of “black money”.
This was of course Jyoti Basu times. Even if people had money, they would keep it low key to avoid army of local toughs to show up to extort with a “yeh hum hai, yeh humara Marx hai, aur yahan CPM pawty ho rahee hai”
Before social media, one of the few avenues for community trolling and cruelty was the wedding. People would gather around on wooden chairs to criticize the wedding while the wedding was in progress.
The coffee was cold, the chicken pieces were non premium (gola and daana), crappy marriage hall, insincere smiles, the paan was stuffed with nothing but khayer and jorda... and I am not getting into the more controversial complaints...
There was no WhatsApp, no one could get screenshot, no body cared for fact check unless the fact wasn’t exciting or scandalous about, stuff that would be politically incorrect to the extreme was the starting point for conversions. Only thing: no one ever discussed politics. Never
Terrible in laws, lack of reciprocity in gift giving, freeloading relatives, officious sister-in-laws, jobless nephews (in those days, people couldn’t claim to be life coaches). If you didn’t pull in your wooden chair to the circle, be sure you were being discussed.
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