Thursday, November 13, 2008

Register thy marriage



Yesterday we had gone to register our marriage, a formality to be completed within a year of wedding.

We had the form nicely filled. I had in fact filled it in my neatest bestest all caps handwriting. We had double checked it and taken utmost care to fill it as if our life depended on it. We went to the main window, which had a Lady Don sitting on her golden throne. She had a good thick glass wall shielding her from the spit of the people who come to (beg/appeal/scream/scold/sob ) get their land or marriage regsitered. She gave us a cursory glance as if asking, hmmm Now I have to dirty my hands for these commoners.

She so much as just scanned the application form and pat came her review comments:-
  • Put parents age for both bride and groom in the form
  • Put parents profession for both bride and groom.
Now, after filling in the whole family saga of both K and I there was hardly space to write anything else. But then, a command is a command, especially coming from a government official. So we some how cringed the ages and professions of both peoples. I think the paper just extended a bit because we were actually able to fill in both nicely.

First change request successfully added.

We gingerly approached the client again. Ahem said Lady Don, give proofs. I was like :O Is it this easy!? I expected she will make us dance salsa before assenting. Then she checked the proofs. My passport was issued to me long ago when I was doing my graduation, so it had my hostel address. Now her demand was, the address I had put for myself in the application form was supposed to be that address. We looked at each other and at the 3 witnesses we had asked to assemble (one being mom in law and 2 family friends ) Then Lady Don calmly said - get a new form.

Wokay .. :| We got a new form and filled the whole Ramayana yet again. This time K had the honours. She had also asked to give in the initials for all the names in the form, the initial signifying the parents name of the person. So I was B. Amrita since my dads name starts with B and similarly every single persons name there, mine, my parents', K's, his parents', every ones name got an extra letter. Weird? You bet. This is called Tamilicization of names :S :(

Whole 999 yards covered again, we went to her - on tenterhooks. She looked. Same look of utter disgust and contempt on her face. Looked at us and said -go to the registrar and get the signature.

Now registrar happened to be a rolly polly man with a lot of chandan on his forehead, seated with atleast 5 idols looking over him. Quite a contrast to Lady Don who was cold and sardonic. He placed his signatures on all the documents while asking under his breath - hope you guys have submitted all the proofs. We said yes in unison. Then his eyes fell on the invitation. He said BHUBANESWAR!??? Who is from Bhubaneswar? Looked at K and asks Neenga? (Means you with respect in Tamil) K said no and said she. But Gollu Pollu chose not to hear that and ask ed me Neenga? I nodded yes.(I thought, if not me then who else MAN? K does nt have a doosri biwi! ) Then he said oh Bhubaneswar has a veryyyyyyyyyyyyyy famous temple. I suggested Lingaraj? He chose not to hear it( Gollu had a mind of his own, and was very choosy in what is important enough to get his ears! ) Then K helped Puri? Jagannath? Gollu Pollu lept from his chair - YESSSS YESSss Yess. I was like - Hello!!! Puri is a good 3 hours journey from Bhubaneswar and a separate city - but if you want to club them together go ahead - but get our marriage certi done :S . Then Gollu Pollu said Very good! Long Live. You are from that place!

I was like ahem thanks ... Long live the King who built the temple and thanks Jagannath - you saved the day :)




15 comments:

The Furobiker said...

congrats on getting kanoonan married :D

Amrita said...

haha thanks :) it means a lot to me :P

WritingsForLife said...

ahh... the things these people make us do!

but at least you got officially married.. hehe

Nitin said...

hahhah .. goverm. work is always like that..even after all the documents they make u run.. and worst part is u cant argue....
It seems there was one gud thing they didn't ask for money ???

But atleast u got the certificate so all well that ends well ...

Renu said...

I dont understand why Govt.officials make evrything so frustrating and cumbersome.
Congrats on finally getting registered !

Ashma said...

hahahahaha.. ROTFL..

Ashma said...

and really it means a lot to u!! ;)

Amrita said...

@Nitint - Paid 500 bucks bribe :|

Ekta said...

hahaha!
and congrats...getting any legal formality done in India is a task indeed!

Anonymous said...

Amrita,

Had not visited you for sometime. Read last 3 posts now. Congratulations for having official stamp for your marriage. Good that you are at peace finally. Your feelings for that blind man incident are actually proof of your good and caring nature.

Do try to visit me if you can find time from your hectic schedule.

Take care

Amrita said...

@NiceGuy - I do visit ur blog regularly... but i aint able to post comments.. am not sure why?
do i need to do nething to be able to post a comment?

I'll try 2 be truthful said...

mata pita ke varsh ka kya achar dalenge ?????i mean will they like sit & calculate if you guys are balik or not :S.
roly poly was stupid funny. hehhe
*ps : didn't know you were married . congrats :) *

Salomie said...

First time here, came via Renu's blog when I saw the title of this post .... we just sent in our application for registration yesterday by post, but the details asked for were very basic, and we didn't attach any witness signatures based on what hubby's best friend did to get his marriage registered.

Reading your post has me a tad worried now ..... :) But wait, we did all this after consulting our own Don who was no help whatsoever, and then with our rolly polly lady who was an absolute gem; she was the one who said just post the forms, so maybe we should be alright :)

Anonymous said...

Amrita,

Thanks for visiting me.

I do not know what could be the reason. I am not very well versed in computers. However I feel that once you click on comments at the bottom of post, page for comments opens. Then you may put your blogname and url in the appropriates places before writing your comments in the box. Then you have to repeat the letters / numbers or combination as shown in the box provided before clicking on post comment. Please do try and I hope it works.

Take care

Just call me 'A' said...

hilarious..i know the ordeal...got this done too with similar melodrama and they still got the marriage date wrong..lol :)
passing by
A