A big fun Indian wedding

From this slightly biased sister's point of view, my brother's wedding was one of the most fun weddings I have been to. It certainly lived up to the stereotypical Indian wedding image of horses, loud music, lots of colour, flowers, glamour, food, food and more food - and I enjoyed every bit of it!

The wedding party span over an entire week - yes seven full days. The ceremonies started in Jodphur, from my paternal grandparents home; then moved to Delhi; came back to Jodhpur; took a short break in Osian and ended in Allahabad!

My parents were clearly very excited about this wedding as they spent a year planning, in great detail, for every small ceremony - trust me, a traditional Indian wedding, especially one in Rajasthan has many of them. 

The wedding started off by 'inviting and bringing' home Gajanan ji (Lord Ganesha) from a particular temple in Jodphur. Lord Ganesha is a big part of the Hindu household, He is specially remembered at the beginning - when one buys a new house, beginning of a festival or as in our case, at the beginning of a wedding. Tarana, living with her spiritually disabled parents, hasn't ever heard much about Lord Ganesha or any other Gods for that matter. So the trip to the temple, a slight novelty for her, was great fun specially the sweet prasaad that the priest gave her at the end. We had to buy a bag full of it as soon as we left the temple as she kept asking the priest for more!

My mom had planned every detail of this wedding. She even had a beautiful silver tray decorated with candles, kum kum (red powder) and sweets that she used to welcome everyone who came home during the week of the wedding. She had bought beautiful red wrist bands that I tied on the hands of women as part of the 'welcoming'.

The first ceremony, like most others, was more symbolic than anything else. It symbolised the process of preparing grains and spices to be used to cook for all the guests. In the olden days, before catering and super markets, this preparation included grinding grains using stones. Therefore the centre of attention for this first ceremony is the humble chakki or stone grinding mill.

The next ceremony, which consumed the rest of the day, was the haldi (turmeric) ceremony.

 The flowers and music brought the house alive. There were three different types of musicians, they had a kind of rhythm going - one would start when the other ended - though it did get a bit much at times.

Thanks to friends, in the middle of this extremely busy morning we managed a few lovely family photographs

 We were particularly worried about how Tarana would react to the wedding, specially the large crowds that are such a central part of the Indian wedding. You see, T is just not a people person, not grown ups and certainly not men. But how can a girl not love a wedding eh? T fell in love with the wedding from the moment the florist stepped into the house.

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K got to climb the horse twice - once for a ceremony in Jodhpur (called Nikasi) and then for the actual wedding (baarat) in Delhi.

 And no matter how busy we were, we had to find some time to make cocktails for friends and family - even if it was only 11 in the morning!

No Indian wedding is complete without some dancing - the sisters danced, the mom danced, the aunties danced, the bride and groom danced..... 

 The wedding can't be all fun for the to-be-weds. The not-so-nice, well lets be honest, the extremely boring and rather exhausting part of an Indian wedding involves the bride and groom standing on a stage and meeting the guests (in this case there were over 500) for a few seconds each. The process - shake hands with the guest, smile to the camera, take the gift and repeat with the next guest! Here is proof of those cheesy moments. The bride and groom were subjected to the stage not just on the wedding day but during a reception in Jodphur and for another reception in Allahabad!

The actual wedding was beautiful - a huge fire in the centre, some chanting, a starry night, close friends and family (yes, that's the strange part of an Indian wedding - most people leave before the actual ceremony, only some family members and very close friends stay on!)

 And finally, as someone once said, after another "Triumph of hope over experience", the two walk away to a few more days of celebrations and finally some quality time together in the Maldives.