Haresh Shah
Just One Last Time
I don’t remember anything at all of the wedding ceremony of Tina Chan – one of our freelance contributors at Playboy’s Chinese language edition in Hong Kong. Or even if I or anyone else sitting at the table was invited to attuned. Whether it was a church wedding or a traditional Chinese affair. What I do remember is; about a dozen of us editors and executives are seated at the table of the noisy and crowded banquet hall of the Hotel Royal Garden in the heart of Kowloon, waiting for the bride and the groom and the wedding party to arrive for the celebrations to begin. When they make their grand entrance, Christina is dressed in the western bridal dress with the veil lifted and the train trailing. She is not particularly what I would call pretty, but in her bridal finery, she looks as stunning, radiant and beautiful as a bride should. The happy smile on her face communicates the bliss she must feel. Her husband too is dressed as would a western groom – in a tuxedo, ruffled shirt with starched collar, shiny shoes and the bow tie. The just married couple and the wedding party enter the hall with a roar of applause and the cheers from the family and friends, following which they together go from table to table, their faces bursting with smiles and laughters, welcoming each and every guest and then finally sitting down at the bridal table for the banquet to commence.
Like any other formal Chinese banquet, this night’s banquet too contains a traditional twelve course meal. A glass top lazy Susan is placed atop each of the tables and the food is served in large platters or turins. I obviously don’t remember all that was served, but most likely there was Shark Fin soup, various sea food dishes, which may have included abalone and shrimps, pork, beef and chicken and some unrecognizable gooey and slimy dishes whose origins I am afraid to ask. The white slippery lumps of meat that I pick up from one of the platters could be anything. I think of the skinned snakes dangling down in Taiwan’s snake alley, freshly slit lengthwise from the head to its tiny tail, the hot blood dripping over a dozen or so little cups the size of the shot glasses waiting to catch the spewing blood and several young men eagerly picking them up and chugging up while the blood is still fresh and hot, for it’s believed that the fresh snake blood makes you more virile.
Without giving it much of a thought, I follow their gestures and try my best to negotiate the shiny lacquered chopsticks without dropping or dripping the morsels I have managed to trap in their jaws, and lower them gently inside the little bowl placed in front of each one of us, before swiftly shoving the food inside my mouth. Just the way they do it. Some of what I eat is delicious, some I am not sure about and some undetermined. I wish all through the meal for some fried rice with which to mix some of what I am eating. But traditionally, rice is always served at the end of the meal just like in the North and the West India. So I try to wash it all down with San Miguel beer. The lazy Susan keeps turning, the food keeps coming in. It takes about two hours before rice appears, thus signaling the end of the courses.
Traditionally, there are no drinks served with a Chinese meal, but soon as the meal has ended, the bride and the groom get up from their tables and begin their rounds to greet each group, a bottle of Hennessey XO in hands, toasting each one of the guests. From table to table, and at times from person to person, they toast and must drink bottoms up. I am absolutely amazed at how much the newly weds must drink over the course of the night. And they still float and maneuver the narrow aisles between the tables with that permanent smiles pasted over their faces, listening and telling jokes. Not only do the bride and the groom, but also the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and the close family, swirl around the hall, back slap and talk loud and then down yet another shot of Hennessey.
As they begin to fold up the tables and just when I think the evening has come to an end, the mahjong tables replace the dining tables and as if the cacophony of the people screaming and shouting and backslapping weren’t loud enough, the sliding back and forth of and bashing against each other of the mahjong tiles is deafening. But the mood is jovial and the downing of Hennessey continues. Now the bride and the groom have split up and are tending different tables, sort of like the division of labor. How can you even begin to stand straight after those many shots of cognac? But they do, and do it in style.
While the groom is busy at one end of the hall, on the other end the bride is surrounded by some of the groomsmen and other young male friends. I notice that there is a lot of giggling and horseplay going on between the bride and the men surrounding her, mainly the men teasing and roughhousing the bride while even attempting at some blatant groping – pinching of her ass, rough flash-quick squeezing of her breasts through the bridal gown. The advances the bride constantly tries to fend off in good humor. I see one of them lift her long wedding dress, another grope her above the waist. Just fun and games.
Along with everyone else, I too am feeling bit of a buzz, but perhaps a little less, because as much as I like cognac, I have my limit and also because my favorite is Remy Martin VSOP. Its smoother and lighter on the palate as compared to stronger and darker Hennessey XO. Beyond two or three shots, I stick to my beer and linger. Since I don’t play mahjong, I walk around with the beer glass in my hands, amazed at the whole scene, I just plain watch. The bride is still prodded and groped and manhandled. But she seems into it, fending for herself, but not really. Laughing and screaming things in Chinese, which of course, I don’t understand.
Reminds me of what I had witnessed during the Holi festival years earlier in Bombay. There lived a Marwari family of five farther down the alley from our house, in a two room apartment. An older couple, their daughter and the son Gopal and his wife Radhika, to whom he was recently married. None of us had really seen Radhika face-to-face, except when the fabric of her carefully pulled down sari would inadvertently slip and we would catch a glimpse of her young face. She couldn’t be more than eighteen. Not a beauty, but ugly she wasn’t either. And for my thirteen or fourteen year old, she was an older woman with rounded limbs, and therefore quite desirable. Its Holi, India’s spring festival and everyone is out there with their syringe guns filled with colored water and hanging around their necks, the slings looking like pouches filled with dried and powdered color pigments – rung, with which to splash and smear whoever crossed your path.
I am approaching the Marwari family’s house and am about to pull the plunger of my syringe when I see Radhika, coming out of the house screaming, running and giggling, trying to defend herself from an attack from a young man, Gopal’s country cousin Manoj. He throws a splash of rang on her, she throws some back, but now he has caught her and holding her close against her faux protests while he brings fistful of rung and is struggling to put it inside her blouse. The end of the sari covering her face is askew, her palav is disheveled revealing her naked midriff and her choli pulled up, wet and clinging, exposing the contours of her small breasts. They are rough housing, her trying to keep his hand away from her chest, his hand getting precariously closer and then his fingers pulling the fabric of her choli from the neck and his hand shoving a fistful of green powder inside. Fighting hard and giggling hilariously like a little girl, pulling herself back, she breaks loose. But Manoj puts his hand inside his sling and this time comes out with a fistful of purple dye. He has gotten hold of her again, Gopal watching intently and laughing, cheering her on, don’t let him, Radhika, push him back. But her little fists pounding on the cousin’s chest don’t do much. He has her pinned to him from her waist and is now lifting her sari and in one swift motion, he has reached between her legs and is rubbing the powder between her thighs. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you, she threatens and giggles and then either succeeds to push him away or he just lets go of her. They are both smeared and drenched all over looking like walking, talking and fitted tie-dyed outfits. Gopal is hilarious and so is Manoj, while Radhika though still giggling, busies herself straightening her choli and the sari, giving Gopal a twisted, but loving look and screams at Manoj: just you wait!!! Leaving my teenage body aroused and flustered.
I leave the banquet hall and wander over to the men’s room. What I find there is a big commotion. The groom is lying flat on the floor, totally passed out while a couple of his groomsmen fuss over him and conclude that he needed to lie there for a while.
I don’t personally know the groom, except for having said a quick hello while wishing them well in the reception line. I inquire to see if he is okay. I don’t know the groomsmen either, but they know who I am.
‘He always gets this way after he has had a bit to drink. He will bounce back and up soon enough. No worries!’
So I do my thing and come out. I say my goodbyes to my publisher and a couple of editors, who all are banging at the mahjong tiles. As I stumble over to the elevator bank, I notice the best man and the bride getting on the elevator headed up – more like as if he were the groom, with his arms around her waist, their sides glued together. The elevator door slides close and they are gone. I watch the floor lights of the ascending elevator and notice it stop on an executive floor up above. Probably the bridal suite.
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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