Wedding report

Greetings, once more.

First, my apologies for the mismatch of photos with captions below.  But I think you're all smart enough to figure out which picture is which.  Next time, I think, it'll work better.  Blogging has been a learning experience for me.  (And, sometimes, a failure-to-learn experience, at least when it comes to video clips!)

Nehal's wedding involved various ceremonies and celebrations, over the course of four days.  Let me describe the actual wedding day itself.

In a nutshell, we felt as if we'd been dropped into the middle of a Bollywood movie.  Music, dancing, fabulous costumes, bright colors, and bright lights and cameras taking it all in.

The groom arrived at the marriage hall, in a fancy hotel complex, by car (not by white horse), and then worked his way from the street to the hall through the throng of guests, stopping every few feet for a ritual, a ceremony, and, always, a dance.  It took him about 90 minutes to go maybe 80 yards.  The band played without let up the whole time. 

Finally, at the steps of the marriage hall, the bride came out to greet him, her eyes demurely downcast.  He was lifted on men's shoulders, and she, too, was lifted up.  After several attempts, she managed to toss a flower garland around his neck, like getting a ringer in horseshoes.

Then, he proceeded into the marriage hall itself, and she went back inside to, I think, change clothes again.  While he waited, on his throne under the floral canopy, I thought for a moment that we were going to lose him.  He turned white and was pouring sweat. His brother and mother attended to him, whipping off his white turban, fanning him, and bringing him water.  The poor guy was wearing hot formal clothes and a hot turban, and had spent 90 minutes in a crush of people under the hot noonday sun.

After some time, perhaps an hour, a floral palanquin was removed from the hall and carried to the bride's room.  She climbed in and was carried to the hall (by what looked like pallbearers) for the ceremonies that the priest (acharya) conducted -- ceremonies that went on for most of the rest of the day, breaking only for the couple and their families to have a late lunch, before resuming once more.

Meanwhile, wedding guests were coming and going, in and out of the marriage hall and the adjoining banquet hall, giving me the impression that, except for family, most just came for the buffet.  (They'd have had to take the day off from work to attend the whole thing.)

Rob and I visited with the couple during their lunch break, and discovered the bride was suffering from the heat less obviously but just as much as the groom.  The clothes, the jewelry, the heavy headpiece and the floral garland were weighing her down mightily.  By this point, both of them admitted to exhaustion.  And their parents looked like toast, too.

But it wasn't over yet.  More rituals followed lunch.

The most interesting to us was the bidaari, where the bride bids her farewell to her family.  The bride, traditionally, becomes part of the groom's family upon marriage, so the farewell is poignant -- even though she will still see her parents, brother, cousins, grandma, etc., often.  It's a highly symbolic moment, one in which the bride and her entire family -- men and women both -- cry, howl and sob.  It wasn't faked -- it's a touching moment, and everyone is exhausted and emotionally on edge, so tears flow easily, even among onlookers.  It's contagious.

Finally, the bride and groom (he is grinning, giddily, ear to ear) work their way slowly through a crush of well-wishers, to the waiting car.  Midway, a sudden hub-bub breaks out around the bride.  Her new husband, brother and father quickly wrap their arms around her.  Bring a chair! Water!  They sit her down and fan her.  The groom attends her solicitously and tenderly while she recovers from her near-faint.

Only later do I hear from another friend that brides "always" faint after the farewell to the family.  It is, apparently, part of the programme.  But as hot and exhausted as she had been an hour or two earlier, it would be no surprise for her to crash and burn for real.  Which may have been the case.

So, that was the wedding.

But my favorite part of the whole thing was the party the night before, the "sangeet."

It was a big feast, a garden party in a park outside of town, where the air was soft and sweet and pleasantly cool, just like the grass under our feet.  

And there was music.  A stage show presented by the parents of the couple -- something like a bachelor party for both groom and bride.  And dancing, up on stage.  By relatives and friends.  And by a couple of foreigners who got dragged (not unwillingly) up to dance with the Indians, to a "Bachelor" song in Hindi, from a Bollywood movie.  Everyone knew the song and the dance, and lip-synched expertly, and remembered all the movements in the choreography.  Except, of course, us.  Not that it mattered.  We just shook and wiggled to the beat, American style.

But it did feel a bit like the disco song "Y-M-C-A" must feel to an illiterate.

Fortunately, our Indian friends loved it.  And trained their bright video lights and lenses on us.  So we have been recorded for posterity -- having the time of our lives.  And enjoying our 15 minutes of fame.

All during the wedding, folks came up to us, shook our hands, and said "You're a good dancer!  We saw you!"  And grinned -- and laughed.

No, we really aren't good dancers.  But we ARE good sports.  :-)

Sara