The Lair

There is a tradition in Sri Lanka which says that most events of portent need to be undertaken at an auspicious time. Said auspicious time (and day and even year) is determined by a bunch of astrologers. Or so I think, I’ve never actually been very interested in the inner workings of figuring out a good time to step outside your household, have a bath etc etc (yes, it does get that detailed at the start of each year). Although most of those traditions are dying out (or just plain being ignored because no one can be arsed to keep proper track of time) - one important aspect of this auspicious time business still remains in full force.

You just gotta get hitched on a good (as arbitrarily decided by some mouldy astrologer type) time and day.

Although I may mock this careful selection of a fortuitious time and date, it’s more than likely that I’ll probably appease some elderly relative (or my parents, for that matter) and say “yeah, yeah, 1024 and 37 seconds sounds like a great auspicious time to me too”… But, I don’t need to care about it right now, so I can play the iconoclast and mock this ritual timekeeping. To sound even more acerbic, I can ponder how a country containing people (generalizing a bit here) with a somewhat lackadaisical attitude to time in general can possibly hope to conform to some arbitrary deadline without time units in round numbers. A deadline which corresponds to random movement of stars and planets, to boot.

To get hastily back on track (and stop wasting everyone’s time … mwahaha) …

Astrologers generally agree on good days of the year on which you should tag on ye olde ball and chain. The net result is that certain days of the year are crammed full of weddings and most other days are ignored. Yesterday, the 9th of June, was one such good day on which to get married (or so the astrologer overlords proclaimed).

The problem with Colombo and the ages (and marital statuses) of people I know is that this astrologer fixation on certain days of the year gives rise to … scheduling conflicts. Most notably, I had not one but two weddings to attend yesterday. At least one other guy I know got married yesterday as well. So err. juggling all these invites become a bit of a problem. So, my scheduling dilemma for the week - one wedding reception on Friday morning, another on Friday evening. To make a comical situation even more farcical, both wedding receptions were at the same hotel.

The more practical among you are probably thinking - uh, duck one wedding and just witness one nuptial ceremony. For some strange reason (doubtless stemming from a subconscious desire to run around sweating from one wedding to another); I decided not to pick one ceremony to attend. Nope, that would be entirely too easy for my tastes. So, from one wedding to another we went…

It helped that these weddings were totally unrelated sets of people from my past lives - there weren’t any others who were forced into this sort of idiocy. Or maybe there were and they were just smart enough to pick one wedding to attend. Anyway, the second part of the problem was that the morning wedding was packed with people with whom I have err.. slightly strange relationship. To cut a long story short, I used to spend a majority of time trawling bars with this lot and thus, the expectation was that we’d spend a greater part of the wedding toasting the newly weds. With copious quantities of alcohol. All well and good except I couldn’t retire in the afternoon to nurse my whiskey sodden and aching head, but faced the prospect of haggling with a three wheeler guy or three (*shudder*) and attending a formal church ceremony. I may be slightly uninformed on etiquette in churches, but my general understanding is that sitting next to a guy smelling of some expensive perfume is ok. Sitting next to a guy reeking of expensive Johnnys’ is slightly less ok. There is only so much that TicTacs can do to mask the odour of a malt whiskey so err.. discretion had to be the better part of valour in my morning wedding “toasting”.

Of course, combine the bunch of chronic dipsos I call my friends, a wedding and whiskey by the barrel load and even the best laid plans are apt to go awry. So, I was considerably worse for wear when the whiskey ran out and we were all clustered outside the hotel entrance watching the bride and groom getting into their car.

Then, the sozzled best man (who was splitting our whiskey with us) had this brilliant idea of going upto the bridal suite to hunt out more green label johnny. Ugh. We were a bunch of about 10, all of us three sheets to the wind. Of course it seemed like a great idea at the time. I ignored that small voice at the back of my head telling me it wasn’t a good idea (or maybe it was our designated driver, I can’t remember) and we all crammed into the lift. 10 seconds later, we burst into the bridal suite. Fortunately, the newly weds hadn’t snuck in for a quickie (that would have been priceless). Unfortunately, someone noticed a couple of bottles of champers laid out for the bride and groom. 30 seconds later, a majority decision was reached to snaffle the champers (the rationale: neither the bride, nor the groom drink anyway, so there is no point in wasting the chilled champagne, is there?). I feel rather proud that I was one of the few dissenting voices; but nonetheless, the champers were popped open and finished in a rather quick time. Having done our good deed for the day, and spared two lifelong teetotallers from the temptation of chilled champers, we retreated back to the lobby with the self satisfied glow of a job well done. Or it could have been the aftereffects of the whiskey, I can’t remember.

And I made it to (and from) the 2nd wedding later on that night without many mishaps, but that, as they say … is a whole ‘nother story.