In Kerala

Sometimes the things we dream of are better left dreamt.
I am hot, bothered and on the cusp of that time of the month.
I want to say I loathe Kerala - but its such a strong word. I think instead I will say, I am loathing my time here.
As we were driving from my mom's place in Kottayam, all these words swirled around my head and I was determined to post about my time there.
But now every word i type seems bland.
The heat is really getting to me and I realized yesterday that I have never spent any time in Kerala in May, except maybe when I was tiny person. Kerala, to me, has always been about rain and cool winds and manageable heat. So this has come as a shock to me.
And the whole going wedding shopping with folks - when I was a kid, we went to one of the big Bridal centers in kerala for an aunt's wedding shopping and we were treated like royalty - coffees in tiny paper cups, a salesman spreading lovely saris on elevated devans, being draped with silks and more silks - all so quaintly ethnic. I thought it would be fun to sort of dip my foot in that pool of tradition - big big mistake.
The weight of all the aunts and cousins and daughters in law's opinions and choices and tastes was rather unbearable.
Everytime I refused to buy any sari proferred by the rather condescending salesman, this sigh would go through the collected horde.
I am dramatizing a bit but it was such a hurried, harried, unrelaxed and so not what I wanted affair.
As the pickiest person in my family, I'd like to go all over the place, shop here, shop there, try on a million things, return a million minus one things and so on and so forth.
So for me to have done all my wedding shopping in two days - including clothes and jewellery - from one store - is worse than anathema. I feel/felt rather cheated out of my choices and so told everybody I am returning the clothes and the jewelery - this is not making me v. popular among the relis but it's my wedding and i'll cry if I want to.
My parents has been absolutely brilliant about it (intermittently :).

Sometimes i think of childwoman and think - why doesn't she just do what she wants and not bother with the fam and relis?
It's absolutely easy to think that when one is a million miles away in another continent, but the minute you are in India and are surrounded by the hordes, that the traditions and expectations and dreams of your elders surround, suffocate & stifle the living beejesus out of you.

Sigh.

This has been a long rant. But I feel as if I haven't been able to properly spell out my frustration here.
My sister, who has been a rock, suggest we take the car and head off to places unknown on our own, quietly and silently and secretively.
So, that's where we are doing after I return from Madras & Hyd.