satire: Cheese (paneer) & fat Indian Wedding (Feast)

 

 

It happened in Varanasi — a wedding feast turned into a war zone, all because of a missing piece of paneer. When the paneer curry was served and there was, shockingly, no paneer in the paneer, one young man’s heart couldn’t take it. In a fit of pure culinary rage, he drove his mini-van straight into the wedding party, mowing down six guests. Honestly, it would’ve been better if he had just shared the recipe for the dish instead of turning it into a demolition derby. It’s like saying — tomorrow if someone finds no “Shimla” in their Shimla Mirch curry, they’ll ram a truck into the groom’s family. The poor people who got run over that day are probably done with paneer for life.

 

This is the tragedy of Indian weddings — people don’t come to bless the couple; they come to inspect the buffet. Watch the non-veg section sometime. You’ll see grown up men with the seriousness of archaeologists, digging deep with their spoons, hunting for that one sacred ‘leg piece’ We, the proud ‘Non-Veg People of India’ are obsessed with leg pieces. It’s as if the entire marriage depends on that one leg. If they don’t get it, they might as well tear the groom’s leg off instead.

 

Alright, fine — chicken is expensive. Even with all those chemically engineered “farm chickens,” it still burns a hole in your wallet. But paneer? Paneer is supposed to be our democratic veg. protein. These days, it’s so fake that even plastic feels organic next to it. In fact, that’s the very paneer that fuels most wedding feasts — the great synthetic sponge of India. So how on earth did they run out of it? Truly, a national mystery.

 

You can already imagine how this incident will go down in wedding folklore: “Bhaiya! make sure there’s enough paneer in the curry, or we’ll do a Banaras-style entry. Some hot-headed cousin will surely add, Forget Banaras — we’ll make the news ourselves! After all, no Indian wedding is complete without a fight or two. Some even consider it auspicious — a sign of passion! The setup for battle is always ready: the horse, the groom, the loot, the swords, the fireworks — we’re practically a medieval army dressed in sherwanis.

 

But what is it about weddings that makes everyone demand hospitality like they’re attending the royal feast of the gods? One event, ten banquets — mehndi, ladies’ sangeet, cocktail, reception. You’d think the guests were training for an Olympic eating marathon. And the poor hosts — no matter how much paneer they serve, the guests are determined to play Who moved my Paneer! Find my Paneer!

 

Sometimes I imagine guests whispering to their drivers, Keep the engine running, I’m going to check the curry. If there’s paneer, all’s well. If not… you know what to do? Ram them all to avenge the great Paneer Betrayal of Banaras.

 

Because, my friends, in this country, marriages may be made in heaven — but weddings are definitely judged at the buffet. If you don’t believe me, then you are not aware what happened in Nizamabad of Telangana, where a wedding was called off by groom’s side due to mutton dish not having enough bone marrow in the bones served during engagement ceremony.