Protected by the Divine

Lalit Modi narrates an amusing account of the events leading up to his marriage, which was blessed by none other than the Divine Mother from Pondicherry

- Lalit Modi

Ours was an arranged marriage, arranged by our families, arranged by the society, and prearranged by the Divine. I went ‘bride hunting’ from Pondicherry to Porbandar, with stopovers at Chennai, Bombay, Ahmedabad and Rajkot. I finally descended on Kirti’s house like a head hunter from Borneo. Kith and kin arranged the meet.

All eyes on the bridegroom

I sat on a sofa which was a shade too low for my six-foot height. I almost felt that I was sitting on the floor with folded legs! With one glance, I observed that the family was honourable, cultured, disciplined, hospitable, and conservative. The head of the family was the oak-like grandpa, a strongly built sixfooter with a Gandhi topi adorning his head. Beside him sat Kirti’s puny little grandma, hyperactive and enthusiastic. Kirti, the coy and compact bride-to-be, sat beside the protective grandma, her vocal ally. The gentle parents and her colourful aunts with heads covered with their psychedelic saris, and the obese middle-aged uncles of various sizes and shapes, arrayed around me as in a battlefield. All the elders looked serious and curious like a jury but were infallibly polite. More than half a dozen tiny tots sat before me, gaping at me as if I were from a zoo.