So going into my India trip, I had it on my bucket list to see one Indian wedding. So, like a total jackass, I bugged all of my Indian friends in San Diego to get me into a wedding back in India. It even got to the point that any Indian I met I would ask "Is there a wedding coming up that I could go to?" A bit obnoxious for some, but I'm all about getting what I want and getting it now.
Thanks to my persistence, I was able to get into not one but THREE Indian weddings: two Panjabi weddings and one Tamil Brahman wedding. My bucket list has since been amended. I now want to go to a wedding in every state in India. Each state has its own flare that it gives to weddings, and I want to experience them all. Plus, with the way India adds states, this should be a fun goal to try to meet.
No offense to other states, but seriously, Panjabi weddings are where it is AT! Thanks to my friend Prashant for getting me into two Panjabi weddings in Delhi! The first wedding I went to I was even on the groom's side, which made it even more fun. The mehndi ceremony I went to was a great chance for me to meet with the family.
This little girl looks like a gangstah saying "What?!"
The entrance to the house for the ceremony
Me in my selwar kameez straight out of Amritsar...the family LOVED IT
I LOVED the mehndi...and everyone was getting a kick that I was having a harder time holding still for it to dry than the kids around.
Me and Prashant's mom
A couple days after the mehndi ceremony came the main event, which was much fussed about by Prashant's family for me as I had to get a sari to wear to the big day. Luckily, his mom was able to wrangle up one that I could borrow. And I even got it professionally pinned!
Best thing ever what when I was posing for this pic Prashant's dad says "Stand with your legs closed, like a lady."
So we are all at the groom's place (same place we were for the mehndi ceremony). Men are getting scarves tied on their heads, I'm catching up with people who I met the day before, then all of a sudden, this drum line comes in.
The only way I can describe what happens next and for the rest of the night is...watch this vid...this is only a SLIGHT exaggeration of what goes on when you're on the groom's side of a Panjabi wedding:
They like surround the groom and that means it's time for us all to move outside and begin the march from the house to the temple.
Here is a vid of the drummers going at it!
But this isn't any ordinary march...the groom is on a horse, and we are all in front of him dancing our way to the temple while the drumline AND a full marching band is playing. In this pic, the groom's sister is feeding the horse some corn. Not sure of the significance, I was too busy getting my groove on to ask for clarification.
Here's a vid of the pandemonium outside the groom's house.
Here we are almost at the temple. Once we got there, the entire party packed up and headed to the reception hall.
Here's me with my friend's parents at the reception hall.
Here's a vid of the pandemonium outside the reception hall.
So the groom gets to ride in a carriage the driveway of the reception hall to the hall itself. A total of no more than an 1/8th of a mile....but it took the groom's party took like 2 hours to make it because:
This was the crazy party happening leading to the hall. What's sad is the bride has to sit there all done up waiting for the groom to get to the hall, and then she can come out. If I ever get married, I'm going to have a Panjabi wedding where my side will be like the groom's side. You should have SEEN the groom getting down (dancing) on that carriage. But the bride's side was having a pretty good time too. I had never seen Sikh guys dancing, and they were BUSTING a MOVE!
Of course, I made sure to bust a move too. The movie Yeh Jewani Hey Diwani had just come out that summer...so the band kept on playing Bad Tameez Dil and I totally got into the groove.
My friend's parents said we should head into the reception hall (the groom wasn't even halfway down the driveway) and this is what greeted us
The food was INCREDIBLE! There were so many options, North Indian, South Indian, Chinese, Italian...it was crazy
This was the stage were, after the bride and groom had entered, they received the guests.
Beautiful arrangement on the table.
The décor at this wedding was immaculate!
This is just the ENTRANCE to the reception hall!
Panjabis don't play!!!
There were TWO stages at this wedding, one with a constant stream of performers!! The other was of course for the bride and groom to receive guests.
The flower arrangement at the table.
Me with my friend's sister. Notice the LCD screens in the background...that's just to let you know what food that station is serving.
The guest receiving stage and the performance stage.
Here's a vid of the performers dancing to Shakira!!! I was so excited :)
I literally started bugging all of my friends IN India to get me into weddings after I went to these two, and I totally could have gone to more if there weren't so many scheduling conflicts :( Now that I've built up such a strong group of friends, I'm confident I'll be able to attend plenty more weddings in the future, especially since wedding season is coming up.
So my next wedding stop (after some time helping out United Way Kolkata) was a Tamil Brahman wedding in Chennai. The bride and groom from this wedding were friends of a friend of a friend of mine...and they took me in like family!!! What's hilarious is I met Arjun, the groom, in San Diego the night before I left for India at my goodbye party, and he was AWESOME! He gave me Deepa's, his fiancé, phone number so I could get in touch with her when I got to Delhi.
She is so sweet and the first time we met she took me to a Keralan restaurant at a mall in Delhi (she's Keralan...South Indian) and then we went to see Krrish 3 at my insistence. Watching a movie in a theater with me is basically the litmus test to see if you want to really be my friend, because I laugh really loud at movies, and she still wanted me in the wedding after that. She even said "You were laughing at all the serious parts of the movie, it was hilarious!" Awesome. I even had dinner with her and her parents at their place in Delhi. They opened their home and hearts to me and are such genuinely sweet people, I was bummed that I would have to wait until the next month to see them at the wedding, I wanted to hang out with them more! They did give me tons of tips for later on in my trip on what to do and see in Kerala.
So I got to Chennai and hit the ground running (and of course offering fresh Kolkata sandesh (sweets) to the soon to be bride and groom). I got to go to a music festival of typical Karnatakan music with Arjun and Gautam, the friend who introduced me to him. We all headed to the mehndi ceremony at Arjun's place the next day. I can't believe how generous Arjun was and how amazingly inclusive he and his family were. They really welcomed me in, even though they barely knew me.
So just to show that I am legit, mehndi is a typical ceremony for northern Indian weddings, but other areas have incorporated it into their weddings because it's so awesome.
Everyone got a kick out of how much mehndi I wanted
I wanted full arm sleeves and feet...you know, since I'm a mehndi pro now and had had it done so many times before ;P
It's a real feat that I was able to hold still for so long to let that dry properly.
The foot design was so intricate, it blew my mind.
Oh, and I even blew everyone's mind when I busted out the Vick's vapo rub to put on the design to help it last.
Ok, enough of my feet already
My friend Arjun's Grandma, we totally bonded because grandmas are the best.
The table of presents for the soon to be bride and groom.
Ok, so here is the major difference between the weddings I went to. Both Panjabi and Tamil Brahman weddings give you so much food you want to burst...but at Panjabi weddings you get to dance off the calories...Tamil Brahman weddings just stuff your face to lead you into another ceremony for like 2 days straight. But trust me, I LOVED eating all this delicious vegetarian food!
So many ceremonies happening. Here's Deepa in the red sari.
All of the family is up on the stage (at least I can see Deepa's mom and dad and bro)
Beautiful rainbow in Chennai
Gearing up for the big day! We had to be at the hall at 6 am
So this ritual is funny, the groom walks out of the hall saying he is going to the Himalayas. Here's Arjun all ready to go with his umbrella and everything. We had to all get up and follow him out the doors and down the stairs while a band played.
The bride's father has to convince the groom to come back and marry his daughter.
Then we headed into this room where a bunch more ceremonies were going to take place.
Here's the band playing
And here's the video of Deepa putting the wreath on Arjun...the family's pick the bride and groom up on their shoulders and it's kind of like a game to try to get the wreath over your future partner's head
Arjun is a quick'un
The dad's are flanking the bride and groom in this pic
You get to have part of your marriage ceremony be on a swing....awesome!
So this sari was a huge deal....and the hilarious part is I was busy having it pinned by my new best friend in this pic during the climax of the wedding ceremony! Oh well, my excuse to need to see another Tamil Brahman wedding ;)
What was cool was the power went out during this part of the ceremony...making it look so much more beautiful
I don't know why the sides of the pic came out so weird, but here is me with all the groom's friends who came in for wedding (and were my in to this amazing experience!)
And the parting meal was SOOOOO delicious! I couldn't get enough of the food and must have gained like 10 lbs!
And of course after the wedding I had to go jewelry shopping in Chennai because Chennai is known for its jewelry, can you see why?
These lovely ladies from Arjun's side of the family took me shopping and helped me to get a great deal on this Laxmi jewelry set :) They kept on saying how they would help me find a Madrasi guy if I moved to Chennai :P Aunties are awesome
So then, as if the beautiful wedding wasn't enough, Arjun and Deepa were gracious enough to invite me along with the group of friends who they included on a trip to Pondicherry. Pondicherry is a little French colony in south India.
Check out the posh room we got to stay in
That tapestry is to DIE for!
Those stairs were killer though...and I slept up on that loft. The owner of this hotel was super cool, and it was so adorable to hear her French accent and hear her speak in French, it reminded me of being in Paris with my Dad.
Here's the little church in Pondicherry
So this bird picks a card and tells your future (well, the guy tells you the future based on the card the bird pics). The bird's name is Ganesh...so cute!
I just had to get a pic with the French and Tamil...the writing that looks like jabeli (funnel cake). This walk around town was hilarious because it was SOOOOO hot! And it was DECEMBER! Gotta love south India :)
So, I got super excited over this giant conch shell and HAD to get a pic in it. I crack up every time because I just think of that SpongeBob Squarepants episode with the magic conch shell club.
So we also headed to Auroville, this ashram that is supposed to be this super inclusive society. You can read more on it here: http://www.auroville.org/ ...I just was excited to go there because a friend of mine said the chocolate down there is SUPER good....and it totally is.
The services are held in that golden golf ball...we couldn't go inside though :(
The dirt just looks so beautiful to me.
Isn't that tree so cool! There are trunks growing out of the branches!
So serene, I love these colors together
I was so grateful to Arjun and Deepa for including me on this trip, it was such a calm experience
Purple is my favorite color, so I had to get a pic of these flowers.
Here's just a vid of us walking around the grounds
So this was by far the BEST part of the trip! This is little Laxmi, and this temple has her stand out at certain times to bless people.
There's the temple with the line of people waiting to get Laxmi's blessing.
Arjun even ran out to get a bunch of guavas so we could feel Laxmi too.
Here's me giving little Laxmi a snack. She is such a SMART elephant. Because, for the blessing, you have to give her a coin. You drop it on her trunk, she bops you on the head with her trunk, and then she tosses the coin up to the trainer on her back. BUT...if you give her a guava, she knows to just shove that bad boy straight in her pie hole!
I was seriously more excited than the kids, this one kid was even crying when the parents were trying to take him to be blessed and I was like "She's just a little elephant, don't be scared!" This one kid even got to go on Laxmi's back!!! I was so jealous!
Here is one of Arjun's friends in the middle of the head bop blessing from Laxmi
Such a stylish little elephant with anklets and everything
Even her name tag is blang blang.
And this is where we all had to say good bye and part ways. Everyone was headed off to Chennai and Delhi...and I was on my way to take an overnight bus to Ooty, Tamil Nadu...the topic for another blog post. It was the perfect end to an all inclusive wedding experience, not only did I cross off a bucket list item, but I made so many new friends as well.
So those were my wedding experiences in India. I can't wait to have many many more. I leave you all with the song that made me famous at the Panjabi wedding...and has subsequently been stuck in my head ever since :)
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