Filter Coffee #043

On Invitations

Dear Readers,

Many of you resonated with the topic of ‘leap of faith’ in 🔗 FC #42.

Yogita from Thane sent this nice quote:

“Take a leap of faith and throw yourself into the unknown, you will be surprised what you discover about yourself.”

Shahji made a very nice observation about a leap of faith in an arranged marriage being bilateral. Both the boy and the girl tie the knot and take the leap, reposing faith in each other's ability to harness that relationship with love, respect and a sustained understanding of each other's feelings.

Krupa Murthy shared her leap of faith when, at the age of 45, she took to teaching not knowing the associated challenges but believing in herself. She went on to teach for 20 years after that, and she now feels happy and content (in her sunset years, she says — can’t believe that. Not yet!) that a slice of her life was well spent with those little angels whom she taught.

Thank you readers for sharing your experiences.

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📩 Invitations  

If there is one socially, politically or any other-ly challenging task, it is sending out invitations without hurting someone's feelings or someone's sentiments. 

Are feelings and sentiments synonymous? Most people believe that the two words can be used interchangeably. There’s a slight difference though. Feelings are closely associated with a person’s susceptibility to take things seriously. Feelings can also be physical — like feeling hot or cold. A sentiment is a specific feeling, a state of mind or an expression of one's own view on a particular matter. If one expressed a view that is either silly or emotional that person could be seen as being sentimental. So, you could end up unwittingly hurting someone’s sentiment or feeling when you send out an invitation and forget to invite that person.

Invitation to any political event or function generates the most controversy. People who are excluded feel insulted, humiliated, slighted and this list of ill feelings is endless. Some rub salt into the wound. The guy who got the invitation calls up another who hasn’t, to derive vicarious pleasure. Some don’t take a chance and engineer an invitation. Such people are seen in every political function. 

Let’s look at the corporate scene. If word gets out that you have been invited by the boss for cocktails or dinner or both, the water cooler area in the office turns hot with all kinds of gossip. The uninvited are united in their conclusion that the boss has his favourites, and they may taunt the ‘invited’ with all the innuendos they can think of. 

At the corporate level, I had a unique experience regarding an invitation to the wedding of a high profile Director’s daughter. I received 5 different coloured cards in a custom made box. Apparently, my wife and I were being invited to Mehndi, Sangeet, the wedding ceremony,  the reception and the after-wedding party. The invitation had been delivered to my secretary who had kept the box on my desk. A senior colleague ambled in to seek my views on a contract and without a ‘may I?’ he picked up the box and without any qualm counted the number of cards and exclaimed “Wah! Sir, you are in the big league, you got invited to all five events! I got only one for the wedding and my boss got two for the wedding and reception.”

Over the next few days, I became the target of all their discussions and several people would walk up to me and say, “ I heard you got five cards?”. A few days later, the guy who first counted the cards in my office, had the audacity to tell me, “Sir, after I saw that you got five cards, I checked with the Director’s office and they said by mistake you may have got five instead of one. No problem Sir, he said with a smirk, enjoy”. I thought if this is not envy, what is? The entire matter was laid to rest when my wife said, “No way I am going to spend a fortune on different attire required for five different events. Remember we are middle class.” So, we ended up using only one card after my wife managed to find a new-looking kanjeevaram. No prizes for guessing which card. And no one missed us at the other four events.

During our long stay in Mumbai, we got several invitations. One came with a big ladoo, the other with chocolates and another with sweets and dry fruits. A few cards came with a small box of sweets and they were to “block the date”. A detailed invitation would follow.

Invitations reached a new level when we were invited to a destination wedding in Goa. Amazing planning and coordination!  Air tickets, airport transfers, hotel room booking all taken care of. My wife and I who are firmly rooted in our middle-class mindset found the arrangements overwhelming.

I will now take you back to the 60s when my sister got married. In good old Mysore, if you were to go on an inviting spree you either hired one of the Oldsmobile cars or hire a Tonga for the day. In those days, one had to go from door to door and invite the family in person by offering akshate (turmeric coated rice) with the wedding card as otherwise the elders would feel insulted. Each such visit was excruciating. The inviters would get tired of answering a variety of questions about the boy: his height, complexion, parents, his job and about his salary too. They were also expected to touch the feet of those elders and were forced to drink coffee or buttermilk or paanaka (lemon juice) and, in some houses, they were force-fed. The inviters would typically leave in the morning and follow a particular route to avoid crisscrossing and when they returned they would complain of back pain from over-prostrating and clutching an upset stomach!

Ah! In those days there was another complication. Almost all invitations had a number of names under ‘with best compliments from’. This posed problems while printing. The printer would say “If you want all these names at the end, the Ganesha at the top has to go.” Was that a choice? Eventually, a big discussion would take place and a few names were deleted with plans to compensate that couple with a pant piece and a saree as a gift. 

I must tell you this little anecdote. There was a similar discussion on the names to be included under “with best compliments from” in the invitation to my sister’s wedding. There was quite a bit of discord. My elder brother Parthasarathi (we called him Gopi, God bless his soul), who had a dry sense of humour, was listening to all the talk and he gently chimed in, “Whatever you do, please don’t forget to include our maid Madamma’s name”. The tension dissipated in the laughter that followed.

Compare that to today’s WhatsApp invitations. A picture of the invitation is sent asking to be excused for not being able to come personally and requesting you to treat it as a personal invitation. We have come a long way from standing on unshakable formalities to accepting the reality of e-invitations. The Covid situation has lent credence to the e-invites and also the request for virtual blessings via Zoom or Youtube.

Before I conclude, I must mention the invitation to Parsee weddings. The invitation will have a reply card which you are expected to return confirming if you are attending, how many are attending, food pref veg/non-veg. I have attended many such Parsee weddings and this system of RSVP has worked well. Just so that you can visualise that reply card I am posting a version of a card I saw on imguru.com:

Dear Readers, the second wave is proving to be very dangerous. Please observe the curfew, avoid outside contact if possible, and double your masks if you have to go out. Until next week, please take good care of yourself.