PESSIMISM MAKES ONE CRY
By: Iris P. Concepcion

I finally had a taste of the Hindi-Bollywood type of modern, wedding feast for a Muslim couple.

My sister-in-law was given an invitation by one of her former students.  She tagged me along with my unchewed chocolate squares after I had cleaned up  the bloody mess around me in a fictional Eminem setting.

The call was set hurriedly and I had managed to fix a mismatched clothing and slip-ons not knowing what to expect.

It was a wedding, all right,  but I saw one of the most beautiful bikes parked outside the wedding area. Its mechanical innards are transparent. It bears the brand Schaas, perhaps from Frankfurt, and it is gleaming and immaculate.It wails on top the words Bad XXX. Literary luminaries have cautioned me off to the realms of the mundane. Perhaps, they had  missed the point. It is in the funny details that you gain fat and proteins for your paragraphs to luminiscently swell in galactical proportions. Kurt Vonnegut made fun of time travels; he too must have met this bike in his lifetime.

I was told that the wedding feast lasts for weeks as people continue to partake of the food, gaiety and laughter unceasingly. Sometimes, the banquet lasts for a month. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is by no means a fluke. It does burst surprisingly in some Asian cultures. No wonder the bride and the groom become gaunt after the celebration. They have a whole Earth to feed to bless their union.

I took an immediate liking to the bride, clad in pink-white satin (tulle?). The wedding started at ten in the morning but guests who arrive at eight in the evening can still fill their tummies with shrimps in som tum, giant fish in spicy sauce, mango salad and bottles of Fanta. And the couple would still be around to greet their well-wishers, I presume, even after the Chinese New Year.

The bride is a happy blabbermouth; she speaks a very well-intoned English as she informs the guests of her husband's whereabouts (he is praying, she tells us).

Ever the gracious hostess, she walked in her regal wardrobe talking to people, loudly announcing that her mother does not understand English. They did not take my sister-in-law's envelope as is customary in this rites. Guests must give the newly-wed cash that must not be below 500 baht.

We were readily accosted to a table near the wedding stage. We ate the mix of food served. I had to re-acquaint myself with the abundant chilis enough to make one's lips plump. I invaded my sister-in-law's plate and ate her fish. I drank orange and shredded the shrimps. I consumed the mango salad, a delectable manner of piercing this fruit's eclectic food uses.

The stage is a Nine West bag. A fantastic arrangement of pink and white flowers with a sprightly clean and white sofa set in front. It is picture perfect. A sage once told me that no matter how much money you have in your hand, an artist never selects his forum for expression. You create only  the best whether or not you have six-pence or a million dollars. The flower arrangers put their hearts into making these flowers breathe. Reese Weatherspoon's Elle character would have swooned over the magical garden. It is all done in pink and white.

Like a photoshop studio, the bride and the groom who finally showed up in a Sgt. Pepper-like suit ensemble, posed for a lens adjusted by a guy in shirt with a Nora Aunor mole on his left mouth. His shirt bears the words Mr. Epic, perhaps foretelling the narrative of the Grapes of Wrath. It is embossed in seagreen. The husband  beamed with a big smile as his wife hopped from one area to another. I noticed that she packed a camera by herself to take pictures of her own wedding banquet.

Our seatmates at the table are from Pattani, a place reachable by train from Yala. They happily munched their cucumbers and bean stalks. I would have sworn to the authenticity of their sidekick postures. They were eating dramatically like plenty of men do: in huge gulps and slobs. The guy in shirt fiddled with the stalks though. He cleaned up the whole serving. He is the photographer-in-residence. I had elongated my mouth one time as the spicy food hit my palate like a volcano. Even their pancit noodles have chilis on top. I like the mango salad and the fish best. The laughing junglemen might be rating the food with the same star rating as mine. I had to desist myself from smiling as they catch the food in various array of mouth stretches. The most robust one looks like Yao Ming, the recently retired Houston NBA player.

We were invited to pose for pictures with the couple. I had refused and shouted to the wife who was already prettily transformed on stage, that I look like a slave beside her. Thank God for her gift of fortitude and language, my humor did not get lost.

And yes, she had announced that she has an existing Facebook account and would share the captured visual poetry online.

We bid adieu to the couple's family. We were all smiling as we came out. I was given a wedding souvenir: candy-shaped rings tied in a cute, pink fan.

We passed by the beautiful, manmade lake park on our way home. We did not catch its dawning allure as the streetlights were not turned on. I saw some boats anchored beside the trees. The lake at night invites a novel destiny beckoning for a brilliant discovery.

The lights above were still in dark hues; they have not used the newly installed ones with stadium and amphitheater-like watts. Everything looked dim after the feast until we reached Arkansongkhor Street where my sister-in-law bought me my little dough eggs that tasted like patiently baked waffles. They were sold near a stall of a guy in curious, outer space visage. He is spooning dark soup and had  floated the white quail eggs on top of it for a brightened look. At ten baht, I had my just dessert.

While we are at this hodgepodge of traditional and pop cultures combined, I would like to engage my readers to a poetry hummed and spoken through the artist named MarsRaps. Listen to the lyrics and cultivate the passion for a spoken angst, positively stitched in this gem find. Rap is never slow. Cherish the juxtapositions of his words.

They remind me of Noynoy Aquino's gut-soul language in Filipino. We link and relink because of one thing: we never see the future as dimlight but a bright and illumined highway.