Nyaan mallu kutti

 

Her idea was to look pretty, maybe even hot, she succeeded and how !!! 

This was the attire she chose for her friend Reshmi's wedding in Kerala. The look was to be along the lines of that Sonam Kapoor wore in that 'Gal mitti mitti bol' song of Ayesha movie. She had fallen in love with that saree and would not rest in peace till she found something exactly similar to that. Yes she was a girly-girl in this aspect. She spent many a weekends looking for the perfect traditional mallu cream saree with an in built red patoo. Ignoramus that she was, she realized only much later, that nothing seen in the movies would be that straight forward to obtain. After visiting many shops, suffering several disappointments and enduring sore feet, she decided she would have to do the unthinkable: COMPROMISE!!! And she did. She settled for a non traditional, non mallu, non cream, white saree. She got the red patoo stitched from a local tailor and was quite pleased with the result. Then came the next garment, the quintessential blouse. The thing that make or break your look on THE day. Again she had to dil-pe-pathar rakh, re-think the whole design of her blouse. She settled on a gold blouse with red and black embroidery at the border. The gold material came easily, but the embroidery didn't. She had to traverse one end of the city to the other to find the prefect embroidery which passed the 'Priyanka-Scrutiny' test. The one that finally did was bought not in enough quantity, so said the annoying tailor fella, though she strongly suspects he ate some of it during one of his phased-out deliriums. The hunt had to start all over again, the original couldn't be reproduced and a whole new design was purchased. Time was running out and subtle pressure tactics had to be employed to coerce tailor uncle to show the famed sleight of hand when it was needed the most. 

 While trips were being put to tailor uncle's boutique every half an hour, she utilized her time well by looking for accessories. She never realized that loathing gold jewelery all her life would come back to bite her in the ass someday. And that day it did. She had to start fresh and could do no mix and match. But she was on a roll and didn't lose heart. She found beautiful and ornate gold cum pearl jumkas which she bought without a second thought. But search as she might she couldn't find any bangles that would either fit her not pass her 'Priyanka-Scrutiny' test. She thought she'd come back for it, but never managed too. The blouse somehow found it's way into her hands but till the day of departure to Kerala, this poor soul hadn't resolved her quest for those perfect bangles. At the 11th hour, Mother India's jewellery box was marauded and luckily she found the prefect pearl bangles which were paired with the jhumkas immediately. The rest all just fit in, a simple gold chain was found at the back of the closet, an old gold ring was whisked out but the younger sibling and the gold stilettos which were bought on pure whim found their hitherto unknown apt usage. Being Monica Geller's twin, she checked and cross checked everything: pins, clips, clutch, bindi, make up...blah blah but she forgot the under skirt!!! N-th hour, just before she was to board the bus to Kerala, she pestered a friend of hers to go shop for one and get it for her till the bus stand!!!(Bhagwan aise dost sabko de :D )

Several other challenges presented their ugly head between the 2 days that remained for the actual deck up day. No Mallu aunty was willing to help her out and it was her phirst time with a silak saree, she couldn't find those perfectly bloomed malli-poo (jasmine flowers) that wouldn't give her a headache, she couldn't iron out the saree and the god-awful creases remained!!! But what was per-destined couldn't be deterred!!! Somehow somebody found a parlor aunty for her who spoke nothing but the local lingo,  who was willing to help her at 8 a.m. in the morning. Sign language was employed at it's supreme best and the saree was draped beautifully. She still suspects that mallu aunty thought she was a married woman with 2 kids, while she was trying to say that she has only 20 minutes left before she can put on her jewellery and scoot!!! The malli-poo (jasmine braid) was sprayed with oodles of her perfume so that the actual smell could be masked. In flat 20 minutes, the Bangalore ki tom boy was in the mould of the mallu kutti of Gyad's own country :P.

When she landed at the marriage hall, she didn't expect what she got. For some reason, in her pea-sized brain she thought that being in mallu land the uber present mallu saree would be abundantly on display. Nope not a chance. She ended up being the only traditional mallu looking girl in that mallu wedding, everybody else looked like species ranging from Bihari mamis to Fashion Disasters with stupid multi coloured sarees and garish scary make up...burrrrrrrrrr. She remained the cynosure of all eyes, 10 year olds to the 90 year olds, till she left the place that day. People were getting her extra soft drinks and ice creams, she got extra of everything during lunch, people were dusting the seat for her to sit, people were making way for her as she sashayed walked, people would speak in their strange nasal language at lightning speed without masking who their object of curiosity was. Attention is gooooooooooooooooooood, but this was a massive overdose of it and she had to literally flee the place before she would get drunk and high on it.

All in all she achieved what she wanted, she looked pretty, she looked hot (after the malli-poo came off and the hair style changed), the effort she took for the entire ensemble wasn't in vain :) :) :).

This is post is part of the 10 day challenge which I shamelessly accepted to do in Oct but hadn't manage to start on till now. Traditionally this should start with '10 secrets' but when was I known to follow tradition ;) ? 

P.S. I'll write more about this trip when I consolidate the pics. The trip was made way back in Jan and yes I finally found time to even talk about it. The bride was the prettiest bride I have seen so far, her smile being her best adornment and the whole Kerala experience changed a lot of things in my life, for the better and the worse.

P.P.S: Thank you every body who commented on the previous post; I have read them, but I won't be replying to them cause I didn't want any comments on that post. Like I said it was just a rant, I needed to get out of my system.

P.P.P.S: Welcome, welcome, my new followers, especially Chints you are finally here :D...I was beginning  to worry.