An Indian Wedding… “What do you do”?

I just came back from a semi-traditional Indian wedding. It was an interesting experience. I met with many first-cousins and other relatives who are supposed to be close to me, but this is the first time I am seeing them, ever. Others I am seeing after 16-20 years. I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t sad either. It just made me realize how fragile human relationships are and how transient are the bonds with which we tie ourselves.

It was the marriage of my first-cousin (Father’s - Sister’s son). Nice post-wedding ceremony (Bou Bhath), nice ambience, and the omnipresent question - “What are you doing?” I explain to them that I develop software products. Someone asked about the location of my factory and what equipments (as in gears etc.) I need. Mostly it was a glazed look. Software outsourcing is what almost everyone understands, after all Infosys, TCS and Cognizant does it as does hundreds of thousands of other big and small companies in India.
However software product development, what the hell is that? Sometimes I wonder it would be easier to explain that we provide outsourcing services. We do provide outsourcing services too, but at a limited scale and to only very selected clients with interesting products to develop or projects to deliver.

What else is left? I chat with tons of people, both young and old, mostly old. We then gorge upon a sumptuous buffet, with lots of tandoori chicken, goat meat, fish, some random salad and other items and finally end with kulpi (similar to ice-cream).

The meal was over, the night was dark, we departed after some customary good-byes. I didn’t bother to look at the princessly attired bride in her room as we met earlier. I wish they live “happily ever after” like a fairly tale.