If they feed me one more piece of jaggery, I swear I will gallop away...
In the opposite direction, no less.
These days are the official calendared days for Indian weddings, and if you think that is enough to make me - a white mare - break out into a welcome jig, you couldn’t be more wrong.
I am draped in what is termed ‘choicest finery’ – but which is more like a prickly, choking piece of another five kgs onto my smooth back.
(I can imagine what the poor bride must feel, weighed down with a 20-kilo plus lehenga and all that jewelry. And she has to smile shyly through it all!) Heavens!
Even though there is a cool breeze blowing, today it will not make my mane bristle, plaited as it is with a mouli (a red sacred thread).
Several people breathe down my neck, looking at the handsome groom who straddles me, prince-like. Him – I don’t mind, but the multitude of people who push to catch a glimpse (of him, not me) – now that is what causes my latent claustrophobia to resurface with a vengeance...
Almost if reading my mind, my keeper tightens the reins around me, making all thoughts of escape impossible.
The boy who sits with the groom tests all my patience put together though, what with his constant digging his heels into my delicate sides, and pulling my ears. It is a miracle I don’t snort, pull my hooves up into the air, and cause the little bugger to fall off.
And then starts the ritual of stuffing me silly with Bengal gram. Groannnn!!!
Now I like soaked-he-previous-night Bengal gram. I even find it tasty. But there is only one mouth that I have been blessed with, and the number of hands feeding me, to put it mildly, are more than quite a few. And then there the other problem of being able to eat only that much...
Plus I have never been a ready contender for who-can-eat-the-most competitions, preferring to enjoy the hay and oats that my keeper provides me. I look around languorously, taking my own sweet time, reminiscing of those moments when that flawlessly handsome stallion had looked at me from over yonder, and time for me had stood still..Sweeeeeet.
Needless to say, I sullenly partake the offering by the many eager pairs of hands, which have made it their business to make me choke and splutter.
Don't even get me started about the fireworks. Which cause my very hooves to tremble. Why they insist on frightening me half to death, is something which frankly, goes beyond me.
And then there are the drums that threaten to include my name in the list of the hearing-impaired. And which are enough to bring back those from six feet under (Shudder).
Resentfully I make my way through it all, sighing in relief when I reach the brightly-lit venue, where many garlands and vermilion-cum-incense trayed people await us. The forty-minute walk with the groom and child atop, and the crowd of accompanying dancing baraatis have done nothing to put me into a happy frame of mind.
However, when I snort impatiently and look up, I catch a glimpse of the shy, bedecked bride, blushingly looking at her husband-to-be as he alights from me.
And suddenly it is totally worth every miserable minute.
It is almost as if time has stood still for her too as she catches that first glimpse of her soul mate walking majestically towards her. To make her his. Forver...
Being a white mare at a wedding isn’t all that bad, after all.
I'm such a sucker for romance. Sighhhh!!!
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