Family Reunion

"Are we all Facebook friends now?"

Day 7 of the trip was the climax of the first part of our stay.  The objective of this part was to get the flat ready and presentable for the open house on day 7.  Indians don't the term open house and I forgot how Chad and Valli phrased it on their invitation.  I think it was something like "Come see our new place and eat."  As in many cultures, food is the center of Indian social events.  When visiting friends or relatives, they hold you down, pry your mouth open, and shove food down your throat.  Failure to do that would be considered inhospitable.

But, getting back to the reunion.  Most of the relatives who arrived live in Chennai.  A few more made the journey from Bengaluru, Kutralam, Madurai, or elsewhere in India.  They had not seen Geetha and Jay in 24 years and were probably very curious about "Our American Cousin." They may have been curious about me too.  Some of them knew that I underwent chemo- and radiation therapy, and may have been wondering if I glow in that dark.  That would explain why someone switched off the light whenever I entered a room.

"The concertina is such a misunderstood instrument."

So, scads of relatives came: people from Chad's side, people from Valli's side, in-laws on Chad's side, in-laws on Valli's side, in-laws of in-laws.  I knew that remembering names would be impossible, so I didn't bother to try.  If any of you have read/seen The Namesake,  you may remember the scene in which Gogol/Nikhil says to his bewildered Caucasian brother-in-law at a gathering of Indians, "Just call everyone 'Uncle' or 'Aunty' and you'll be OK."  That's pretty much what it was like for me.  When I look at the pictures from that day, I remember the names of five people, and four of them I had met before.  The useful thing though, is that a whole bunch of Geetha's male cousins are named Mani.  So I had a 50-50 chance of getting the name right just by calling someone "Mani."

"Sarah Palin can see Russia from here."

As Geetha's +1, who would never remember all the names, I focused my energy on focusing the camera and took many megabytes of people standing and talking, sitting and talking, and standing or sitting but not talking.  After that, I was exhausted and took a nap.  I assume that the conversations continued, undocumented by the camera.

Sheila (L) and Rajan (R) - relatives I've actually met before.

OK, so I actually met a few cousins before this trip.  Sheila and Rajan both visited the US separately and spent some time with us in Maryland.  So I guess the term "reunion" is valid for me too.

Watching the bridal pageant (I'm just kidding, Katie)

I joked with Jay that his mother staged this reunion to arrange a marriage for him.  In parts of India, marrying a cousin is accepted unless the couple's fathers are brothers - no, it makes no sense, genetically.  Culturally though, when a woman is married she leaves her family.  So on a relationship tree, the distance between children of sisters is greater than that between children of brothers.  So, if you're wondering why so many Indians look alike, it's millennia of in-breeding.

Yaay!  Everyone's leaving. Now I can play X-box.