Day 17


My lesson plan is now nine pages long, I've been typing it for two hours, and it's maybe one third finished. I'm just taking a break from it for a few minutes so my head doesn't start to bleed.

I've managed to lead a full and happy life (or at any rate, a life) so far without ever seeing a wedding video. Until last night, that is.

I've never quite seen the point of wedding videos. But then, I've never quite seen the point of weddings. If two people decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together, they don't need a lavish party and religious ceremony to do it - they just have to tell people they want to do it...and then try to do it. If two families in business want to invest in each other, they don't particularly need to force any of their children to live in the same house, and they don't need to look the other way when both partners have affairs - or indeed fall in love.

No, as far as I'm concerned, personal happiness is something achieved in private, with or without a partner, and business affiliation is something written up by lawyers in incomprehensible language. But, last night I watched a wedding video. An Indian wedding video, made by "O.K. Films" and entitled "Happy Wedding". It is the (four DVD) film of the matrimonial joining of a friend of my hosts, set to nonstop bollywood songs.

Indian weddings are...colourful. And expensive. And they last three or four days. And they're often multiple. First, the groom is annointed with something which looks remarkably like dahl, by the female members of his family. Indian families are often large (15 children not being unusual), and extended, with aunts, cousins and grandparents all around.

Then all the men eat. And eat some more. There's lots of food at an Indian wedding. Then the men vacate the premises and all the women eat.

Then comes the "money" ceremony. The groom (or grooms) sit on throne-like chairs, and family members (of both sexes) give them gifts of money. The gifts are essentially enormous aprons, made of rupee notes, hung around the groom's neck, while a singer with a microphone sings the names of the givers, literally singing their praises in rhyming couplets.

This goes on for...several hours. With the grooms gradually disappearing beneath dozens of layers of money. Non-money gifts are also given later. The bride(s) and groom(s) still aren't in the same building.

And then, at least in the one I saw, comes the disco. Which is men only. Perhaps the women have a disco too - I don't know. In this case, the men (and boys) gyrated and pranced with each other to 2 Unlimited and disco remixes of Asa Bhosle, on a multicoloured flashing floor that John Travolta would be at home on.

And then...I don't know, because that was the end of the first DVD.

Okay. I'm now somewhat rested, so I can get back to writing tomorrows fucking lesson plan.

2 comments:

  1. erm ... 9 pages for a lesson plan that's only a third completed seems rather long. Unless it's a plan for an entire course.

    I have to say that I'm in awe of you. It's brilliant that you'll be able to travel all over the world and teach - though it's not a job I could do. I'm Way too shy to teach.

    Do let us know what's on Wedding DVD No.2, 3 and 4 ;)

    C

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  2. The final version was fifteen pages, though half of that was script and diagrams.

    I haven't seen the other three quarters of the wedding video - doesn't look like I'll get the chance.

    But it is exactly the kind of subject you find in textbooks for teachers - that is, books of exercises for teachers to teach students. As in "Today we're going to read about Indian Weddings, though it's really just a way to teach the vocabulary associated with marriage".

    Don't be in awe of me yet. I've got to (a) actually get a teaching job and (b) do it for a year before I'm practiced enough to be good at it.

    In the meantime, I've decided that a language school offers immense possibility as the setting of murder mysteries. All those linguistic miscommunications, people comeing and going all the time, and the occasional illicit affair between teacher and student. :-)

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