Weddings anybody???

Ever since I can remember, I have enjoyed attending weddings. Being born to working parents and having never stayed with my grand parents, I have always liked the company of people. Weddings provide one the best opportunity to meet all one's relatives and family friends under the same roof. Not to forget the festivities associated- the nadaswaram, the whole lot of people turning out in their best of clothes, the mouth watering sadya, the sweets that are served etc etc. Food has been a great passion for me and that was also a reason why I used to look forward to the malayalam months of Chingam, Medam, Vrischikam etc when there would be a lot of weddings. The very thought of sitting in front of the plantain leaf and being treated to a lavish sadya with all items starting from kichadi to kalan to pappadams to the pickles to the ubiquitous payasam used to excite me. Now, I am all of 27. I have started loving privacy though I would still like to believe that I am people's person. The passion towards food is still very much there, but the level has come down significantly. Elderly mamis draped in rich kanjeevarams, laden with gold jewellery and with that infectious smile have now started sending a chill down my spine. I realized the extent to which my "behaviour at weddings" has changed only very recently when two of my cousins decided to get married back to back. The first one got married on June 25 at a lavish wedding at Thrissur. He is an IIM- MBA working for Accenture and his wife is a software engineer working for Polaris. They look great together and I was extremely happy for both of them. My second cousin got married on July 9 at Ernakulam. She is a software engineer working for CTS and he is an engineer working for Thermax. They also look absolutely stunning together and I, again, am extremely happy for them. I really had a whale of a time at both the weddings, enjoying to the hilt. Since both the weddings were in Kerala and that too on Mondays, I did not have any issues with taking leave from work either. I participated completely in all the activities associated with the wedding and the experience was good enough to linger in my mind for years! So far so good... Apparently, it is such a big issue if one remains unmarried while one's younger cousins are getting married! This piece of information was given to me during the weddings by not one or two, but umpteen number of people. Kanjeevaram Mamis and Golden karai mundu mamas could simply not help offering their services to my mother, in finding out a docile, home loving, educated, employed, tall enough (to match my 6'2" frame) daughter in law. What I fail to understand is why people are unnecessary intruding into one's personal life. To marry or not to marry is purely a choice that one has to make oneself and it is not fair on anyone else's part to force people into a life long commitment like marriage. Again, 27 years for a man, in my opinion, is too early an age to get into a life long commitment. There might be people who have different opinions, but my dictum here is- To each his own! I am all eyes and ears for the comments on this particular update!