You know you are married when

On my sitemeter I noticed that in addition to confused women who ask koschans such as ' If he kisses me am I pregnant' there are others who are even more confused and stupid because they search for koschans such as 'If he puts mangalsutra am I married.'

For the benefit of such people , I and a few newly wed friends of mine (which includes my dear ex roomie Ms.Malhotra have compiled a ready reckoner sort of list here.If you answer 'Yes' or nodded sadly in agreement or suddenly go and bang you head on the nearest wall in response to any of the following then my dear reader, I pronounce you married and sacrificed:

You know you are married..

• When you wear the engagement ring, the mangalsutra, the sone ka chudhas, the diamond necklace giving major competition to baapi da, instead of wearing strange jewellery you picked up from random stores or exotic street vendors ;)


• When suddenly your bank balance is in the negative and the chances of it ever going back to it’s pre wedding high are non existent, thanks to the credit card bills. We all waited so long for this day just so that we could use marriage as an excuse to buy the overpriced things.


• When just because you are wearing a saree, mangalsutra and aforementioned jazz young boys and girls can call you aunty and walk away smiling, you also smile back coyly like the perfect newly wed bride when actually underneath that saree and jazz there is the old you which wants to beat them and say ‘Teri maa ki!’ or ‘Aunty kisko bola bey!”


• When you are judged every now and then, of course the husband had a bee line of eligible women he could have married but he chose you, so you need to be judged against them, the Mehtas' loving daughter who cooks the best chiken tikkas, the Agarwals' daughter who is oh so pretty!


• When suddenly your phone bills drop to 3 digits from 5 digits.


• When you have a mummy and a mummyji at a same social gathering or function and you don’t know whom to give more attention.


• When you go to some random distant cousin’s shaadi wearing a really heavy lehenga giving competition to the bride, just because you wanna use your shaadi ka outfit and you better use it before your newly wed tag is not so new anymore
  


• When suddenly you have relatives on your facebook friends list, aaaaaaaaaargh, all his aunties and uncles are now your friends and in some cases you actually do have had the courage to not accept their request then keep faking how you never got it!!


• When you enthusiastically bend and touch every tom, dick and harry’s feet since they have grey hair and are related to the husband, damn isn’t there any better way to show you respect (and we don’t actually really totally disrespect you then why the hell do we have to show our non existing respect).
  


• When your ratio of number of meetings with friends and relatives becomes inversely proportional to the one before marriage!


• When everything you mother in law cooks is 'so yummy! I have to learn this from you!'


• When instead of going and spending the entire Sunday at the spa followed by a coffee out with friends and a late night movie, you spend it putting your house in order! or instead of wondering which movie to watch at a surprise stay over at your friends place at Bandra, you are wondering what you can cook for dinner!!