Cultural Baggage

Until very recently – and by that, I mean about a year-ish – I never took to convertibles. Now, I’ve turned normal and savvy and posh. As in, I think convertibles are alright. When I see one zipping past, I can make the appropriate sounds, and do the motions like swivel my head around until I can’t see it anymore and all that.

However before this, I didn’t find them even remotely cool. They seemed quite graceless, on the contrary. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about at all. And it just dawned on me that my former indifference, or even aversion, to these beauties stemmed from cultural baggage!

Fond as my memories are of the South Indian wedding ceremonies I attended through the years, I’ll have to blame the Jaanavaasa car for this prejudice of mine. Jaanavaasam is this function typically performed on the evening before the wedding. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details of the significance. Never mind that.

The matter of the chapter is that this Jaanavaasam starts with the groom and some random children being stuffed into an open-top car. This open-top car is invariably

• a very old, fire-engine red Herald, with a nose longer than that rascal Pinocchio’s and coir-stuffed rexin seats (like in autos)
• the bonnet and sides of which are decorated with several unravelling strands of fragrant jasmine, fluffy chrysanthemums, vibrant orange kanakambaram, purple vaadamalli, and some other flowers of various colours and shades (Sadly though, due to the heat, they are all mostly wilting)
• crawling at a pace of about 3 kmph amidst people who walk around the car, cheering (or jeering, who can tell!) the groom
• blocking traffic on the roads completely, since the entourage additionally includes
  • a performing band (or a traditional naadaswaram party or both, depending on the level of sophistication of the families) moving in front of the car
  • lots & lots of middle-aged, slow-moving adults screaming to be heard over the ‘music’
  • children, who didn’t have the luck to be stuffed in the car, darting about
• driven by this poor man who has to strike the precarious balance between making sure the engine doesn’t stall, and not running over people’s toes, and not getting yelled for he increasing his speed to 3.1 kmph

Therefore, I guess, the word convertible never brought to my mind ‘fast’ or ‘cool’ or ‘exciting’ or ‘wind in hair’. It was sheer torture of the din and the lack of space that swamped over all other picturisations. Also, who would be mad enough to want a convertible in hot, humid Madras?

I don’t know exactly when or why or how I realised that convertibles were actually covetable. It just happened. I’m now wondering what other niceties I’m missing out on unconsciously.

So, does cultural baggage affect you? I’d love to hear. Do drop me a line, or more. 🙂