A few weeks ago, I attended a friend’s wedding in Cochin, Kerala (in South India on the coast) and I have to say I’ve never had so much fun at a wedding in my life. Maybe the reason I think I had so much fun is because this wasn’t a Sindhi wedding. It was a Sikh, Punjabi, South Indian, Mallu (people from Kerala) wedding that consisted of people flying in from all over the world to celebrate the wedding of two very different people from very different backgrounds.
One of the strangest things about attending this wedding was that I didn’t really know anyone. I wasn’t meeting up with old friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time or these people I usually meet at Sindhi weddings who regularly tour the wedding circuit at some arbitrary destination in the world. I was actually meeting everyone for the first time and it was quite exhilarating. No one knew my parents, no one knew my last name or who I was, and I didn’t have to worry about any of my antics reaching my parents or anyone else in the community. I have to say, not worrying about gossip and reputation and people misinterpreting my actions and words was and still is a great feeling and for the first time in my life, I was being my own person. I was Shawn Genomal, friend of the bride and the groom from Bangalore. I wasn’t Shawn Genomal, Ramesh and Cherina Genomal’s oldest son from Manila. For the first time people spoke to me as if I was an adult and didn’t treat me like my father’s son. I was able to converse on a level equal to the Uncles and Aunties I met, and they treated me the same that they treated each other. It’s hard to put into words what it felt like to finally be treated as my own person, someone who has his own accomplishments and and his own life. Please don’t get me wrong; I love my immediate family and my huge extended family but I think that no matter how old I get, that image of the little shrieky, skinny kid that I was growing up will always be what they see when they look at me. It gets a bit frustrating sometimes.
Even though I did not know anyone at this wedding and had to meet everyone for the first time, I had never felt so welcome. There was not one single person there who didn’t talk to me. There was not one single person who didn’t listen attentively as I spoke to them. It was baffling to me that I had just met all of them a few hours before and already I was made to feel like part of their family. This meant so much to me because I don’t see my family very often and they reminded me of my own family. I remember time and time again when I spoke to the bride’s mother she would tell me that I was now her honorary son and that if I ever needed anything that I should give her a call, no matter what. The rest of the family told me I was now part of their family and they all thought of me as one of them. I was, for those five days, an honorary Punjabi.
Now they say that Sindhis and Punjabis are very similar, and we definitely are. We love to dance, we love to drink, and we love to just talk and talk and talk. But there are some differences that intrigued me when I attended this wedding. Like for instance, the uncles were all very nice and game for everything. When we arrived in Cochin, they were the first ones in the pool, ordering drinks, playing Marco Polo, playing volleyball with their kids and their respective wives, friends and relatives. During the parties at night, they had no qualms with being …

By Shawn Genomal

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