'SHETTY'ing the Mood Right - II

So here I was in Shettyland and the mehndi function was over….I had a blast coz I got to co-anchor the whole evening along with shonali (the bride’s sister) and from the compliments I received I figured that I dint do such a bad job after all.

While the evening was almost over, an enthusiastic bunch of cousins asked me if I would like to join them for NEMA, with a half smile…now at first NEMA sounded like some girl friends name, one whose I hadn’t heard of and going by the fact that going to nema was being suggested at almost midnight I thought that we were heading for another party. My other friends and people I knew said they were too tired and they wanted to romance the bed, so I succumbed to the enthu cousin bunch and jumped in Mithun’s brand new Tata Safari. And that was quite an enlightening drive, I must admit…

Not did I just figure out that Nema was no Girlfriend, but it was an annual peasant’s ritual that was held in honor of the local deities and was somewhat like a town hall meeting with God and the most respectable families in town with the peasants and working class people as audience held in a village far from the town….Now that itself had got me very excited. On the way, Mithun also told me about how at 21, he had earned enough dough to buy his own Tata safari thanks to his extremely offbeat and daring Mining business (the guy got attacked with knives on his face and hand by rivals) and a road jelly business among other minor ones like outdoor hoarding site leasing n all. Now, these are the kind of youth I was mentioning, the ones who are breaking away from the clutches of traditional professions such as Medicine and engineering…the point is the market is very responsive for anybody with ideas, you just need two four letter words in you…WILL and GUTS, n you’ll rule the place.

Ok, so now it was almost like 1 am, there no sign of dullness among the cousins, Nimakka was busy changing clothes…something appropriate to battle the cold and to look traditional while Nitin bawa (nima’s husband), Bobby (nima’s brother), Mithun (nima’s cousin brother) and I (am the one who’s writing this, check my profile for more details) spoke about the living conditions in London, Mumbai and mangalore, the use of alternative fuel to run water vessels over Thames, the booming radio business in India and our respective jobs…Well by then nima and her mom n her sisters had finally changed their clothes n were ready to go to Kopparige, which is where the Nema was to be held. Now after parking our cars at a certain spot, we had to walk in stark darkness through rice paddy fields with only the full moon serving as our guiding light for about 20 minutes. The thing about NEMA is that t is organized by a particular family each time, and this time it was the Shettys (don’t look at me like that I know mangalore is full of shettys, but I mean Shonali’s aunts), who had organized the ritual; and the NEMA does not start till the presiding family comes.

So once we were there, we, the main family(yeah by now i was considered one of them even though i couldn't figure out a thank you from a please in TULU, dats their native language) got to sit in the first row of chairs. There were about 300 villagers gathered there. The crux of the nema is a central character who apparently gets possessed by GOD and he then blesses each member of the organizing family and takes stock of the village, its development, its progress, its problems and praises or gives a solution. Throughout the length of the ritual there is this sense of revelry, celebration in the air, fireworks are being fired, music is being played loudly, audience is dressed in festive clothesritual A ritual which probably was started hundreds and hundreds of years ago as a form of entertainment, idol worship, faith, and spirituality still exists and that’s what surprised me…I mean none of the family members who knew they would be coming for the NEMA consumed non vegetarian food or alcohol. Each one was mentally prepared to stay up all night (yeah that’s how long this whole ritual takes, n by the time I figured it out it was too late to go back alone anywhere, if I stayed I would at least be dropped back to my club). So that’s what I am talking about, people who have gone and settled in London still appreciate and encourage our culture, our rituals, our beliefs and involve the youth in sustaining it, coz they are the ones who would keep it alive…I was very impressed by the dedication. My feelings apart, The central Character who plays GOD does a lot of hardwork…firstly he is dressed in this whole outfit made out of palm leaves, his face is heavily masked by colored make-up so that he is not identified in the day time, and his body is adorned with jewellery of every kind. Now this person has to keep moving around, sometimes dancing and hopping around, when he gets charged….with all this weight, he also takes turns in holding these two mashaals/ torches with which he passes blessings to each member of the family.
The entire ritual lasts for about 4 to 5 hours during which there is live music by local musicians, processions of the idol of the local deity which is a personification of Lord Shiva and lots of devotees offering flowers and taking blessings from the deity.

The climax of the ritual is when one of the central character i.e. GOD’s subordinate beheads a live chicken with a huge knife, the blood is drained off and the chicken is then cooked on site and distributed with steamed rice as Prasadam. I was told there is another sect who organizes a similar ritual but calls it KOLA, the difference being that Kola is more graphic, dramatic and calls fro the sacrifice of almost one dozen chicken as against one here.

So after this unprecedented evening of fun, frolic and faith (well the evening almost extended till 5 am), I was more than happy to hit the comfortable bed of my room in Mangalore club. There was one problem, my roommates were just not opening the door to my bell, I tried calling them, but both the phones were switched off. Then I think due to some divine intervention Ranjit woke up and let me in…both of them were obviously sloshed!

The next day was free for us so I decided to wake up late…

'Shettying' The Mood Right!

Well, "A Picture says a thousand words", pardon me but i have to use this cliched one-liner to start this post, just so that u take ur eyes off the text and fix your eyeballs on the picture once again to soak in the sense of celebration! Well, no prizes for guessing that its a wedding photograph, and the bride and the groom,(the most ornamented ones) are flanked by the entire family from the bride's side....Why is this picture here then....nice question!

Coz, this is where my last break took me, to the "Shettyland", as i call it, Mangalore on the Indian map! For the unitiated, Mangalore(karnataka) is the hometown of a community called Bunts who bear surnames such as Shetty(the most famous ones), Rai(aishwarya rai), Pujari, Hegde, etc.

This community (from now on i mean the Shettys) is quite peculiar in the way their families are. Almost every male member holds a medical degree, its somewhat like a prerequisite here; even though there are daring young blooded shettys who are looking elsewhere and making a mark for themselves in unimaginable businesses(read as granit mining, jelly production for road construction). In Mumbai, which is where i live, the Shettys enjoy a reputation of either being restauranteurs or people on the wrong side of the law!(tried very hard to make this sound polite, thats the best i could manage). But the fact is its and extremely educated and qualification stressing community back in their homwtown. Its normal for kids to do their medical graduation from some university in/ around karnataka and then fly to UK or the States to complete their Masters. But whats amazing is that, not many of them want to settle down in the countries that they have spent lakhs earning master's. They'd rather come back to their small li'l town and join their dad in his hospital or practise on their own. Such a affinity to their hometown surprises me, or is it the invisible parent pressure....i don't know, haven't figured it out yet!

Back to my vacation,

So here i was, in Mangalore, on the 2nd day of the 1st month of the 7th year of the 2nd millenium!

The occassion was Shibani's wedding (my friend shonali's elder sister). Now i have never been closely related to any and i mean it, any sort of wedding so this was a first for me!

The groom had just returned to m'lore after 2 years in Auckland and the first round of rituals was the Mehndi ceremony.

Here, my friends, is where i thanked Suraj Barjatya and Aditya Chopra(filmmakers) for making 3 hour long, 14 song and dance sequenced family drama movies which had every possible occassion in life celebrated and hence a song devoted to each one of them.

So the plan was this....mehndi functions are pretty normal, the bride getting henna on her hands and feet and the entire girls side celebrating that.

What i did not know was that this also served as an Ice-breaker woth the groom's family! and the shetty's decided to do this in their own way.

And just in case u r wondering what was it here it in a DIY(do-it yourself) format:

1. Collect pictures and videos of your sister and her boyfriend right from the time they first met till recent ones

2. Call up all your cousins and ask them to prepare themselves for a dance sequence(better do this well in advance if you have some busy of 2 left feet cousins)

3. Make a playlist of songs that depict the couple's journey from their first meeting to marriage

4. Use Windows movie maker or any song editing software to make 50-60 second clips pf the desired songs. (oh must include songs include the ones from jo jeeta wohi sikandar for college life, Dilwale dulhaniya le jaayenge, Hum Tum, Kuch kuch hota hai and other yash raj movies for the whole milna- bichadna sequence)

5. Get some friend or cousin who can choreograph a simple yet fun to look at dance sequence.

6. Use a lot of props to make the sequence look more realistic

7. Make short movies using ur digicam that showcase your sister's excitement and preparations before getting married...(u can incorporate this in the song and dance medley itself and use it as a connector)

8. Once you have rehearsed all your dance moves with everyone and synchronization is somewhere on the horizon, u can heave a sigh of relief.

9. Decide a color theme for all the performers for the mehndi evening and well last but not the least

10. Sleep Well the night before, make sure the DJ arrives on time, the mehndi venue is decorated with flowers, chairs, carpet, lights, the caterer's got his act together, outfits are ironed, make-ups done, digicams are loaded, cars are sent to pick up relatively important relatives and voila, its time to put up the SHOW! Lights on, Camera n Action!

This was more or less what all hapenned just within the first 2 days of my vacation in mangalore, and all this while I was staying along with other friend's from bangalore in a beatiful recluse called the 'Mangalore Club'.(a structure that actually look quite depressing from the front, but is an amazing retreat once u r in).........

I know u r tired n u wanna catch a coffee or go answer nature's call....go ahead, read my next blog on how the mehndi function was and the Muhurtam ceremony, the Nema - -where i witnessed a human being possessed by GOD, and of course the Final Shaadi and the reception....Trust me this is one hell of a 3-hour movie!

Chak De Phatte!