[Posted once back home in Paris]
After the last post I had no more free time to write—our hosts had arranged
something for every minute and gave us a car and driver at our beck and call.
He didn’t speak much English, but there was usually a schedule to stick to. Events
were planned for most of the day, five days in a row. We had no time to shop
for souvenirs or even write postcards! I didn’t mind because it was all so
interesting. But by the end of the wedding celebrations, I saw that an Indian
wedding is an exhausting and expensive affair for the bride’s and groom’s
families. Indian families must save for it very much as we Westerners do for a
college education.
Most of the photos here are from the “official newsletter” of the wedding. The
resolution isn’t great, and I have fuzzed out everyone’s faces except the
professional entertainers. Unfortunately it really was not cool to take photos
at most of the events, and I am not a great photographer, so these will have to do. I wish you could see how
colorful and lively it really was. And
the food! Mmmmm.....
The First Day of the Wedding
We had missed the first day of the wedding. I was sorry about that, but in a
very nice touch, there was a wedding newsletter each day so I was able to read
about it and see photographs.
In the morning, the Mehendi ceremony, when the women of the bride’s family and her
friends have henna designs put on their hands and feet. Since it takes hours to
do, the bride’s mother had arranged entertainment, in this case with 
puppets
and dancers from Rajasthan, because she is from there. The bride’s father fed
his daughters by hand as they
held their hennaed hands in the air to dry. The
guests left with gifts of bags, bangles, toe-rings, perfumed oils, a box of
sweets and a toran, or wall-hanging.
In the evening was the Sangeet, a musical
entertainment. The bride had known that the Sangeet would take place, but not
that her own family would be singing and dancing and performing skits for
her—they had been practicing in secret, and even her grandparents, who just
celebrated their own fiftieth wedding anniversary, did a dance for her to wish
her fifty years of happy marriage like theirs.
The Second Day of the Wedding
The next day we arrived in the morning in time for the Maayra ceremony. This is when the bride’s mother invites all her male
relatives to bless the bride. Afterwards the tika or red spot is put on the
foreheads of all relatives and close family friends. I was moved that we were
included in this. Afterwards there was a delicious meal, served buffet-style
like every meal during this wedding. As we left, a child handed us each a bag of gifts.
After the Maayra, we were sent out
for a couple of hours shopping. Our friends had asked us to wear Indian clothes
to the wedding the next day, and sadly forbidden me to wear a sari (in India
spelled saree). I don’t know if it
was because they think Westerners look stupid in them; because our host
dislikes saris--which is actually the case; or, as several people mentioned, because
saris are very difficult to figure out the first time you put one on and they
were afraid mine might come undone in the middle of the ceremony! This is the
reason that they are worn with a petticoat.
The Indian army officer and his wife therefore took us to a large shop on
several floors, where a myriad of attendants had the job of taking things off
shelves one by one to show us. D bought two kurtas,
long Indian tunics with pajama-style trousers underneath. I found it a bit
inhibiting to have five or six people watching as I decided what to buy:
several shop attendants, D, the Indian army officer, and the officer’s very
elegant wife. When I asked where she got her clothes, which I liked
much better than what was in the shop, she said she picked out the fabric and
had her tailor made them to her own designs. Unfortunately there was no time
for that.
I bought something called a churidar,
which is a long tunic, with trousers underneath that are very tight at the
ankle, with a shawl. 
I was mortified to learn after I picked them out that our
host had insisted on paying for everything, down to the bag I was wearing. D
and the Indian army officer practically had a fistfight over the bill.
The churidar had beautiful
hand-embroidery all over the tunic and the six-foot-long silk shawl, or dupatta. An Indian woman pointed it out
to me at the wedding and complimented me on my choice. I hadn't even noticed
the handwork, I was in such a hurry when I bought it. The price was about 120
euros for the whole outfit. I wonder how much that seamstress made for her
beautiful work, and what her life is like.
In the evening there was a ceremony called the Lagan, when the men of the bride’s family formally invite the groom
to the wedding. Then there was another tika
ceremony. During this, the bride and groom touch the feet of all their elders.
This seemed strange to us, but a very Westernized Indian assured us that it has
its purpose. “It’s to create harmony in the family. In India, we almost all
live together in extended families, and many members of a family often share
even a kitchen. Touching the elders’ feet is a way of showing respect and helps
bring the new person into the family. It’s impossible to feel angry with
someone who has touched your feet!”
Before the Lagan there was another
big dinner and a grand entertainment in a large theater, including this peacock
dance. It went on till almost midnight.
The Third Day of the Wedding
On the third day the bride and groom went early in the morning to the
temple. Meanwhile we drove around the city for a short sightseeing tour with
the army officer and our driver. I was prepared for it, having read so much
before I came, but it is still striking to see a modern building with a
shantytown across the street, or a beautiful old colonial-era house
completely
run down with a tree growing sideways out of its third floor wall, or what
looks like a haunted house with broken window panes, but with a Mercedes parked
next to it guarded by men in uniform. Any building that is not constantly
repainted looks shabby in the baking heat and thundering downpours of India.
Knowing Germans, I was amused to see that the Deutsche Bank had the neatest
façade in the city.
A few beggars came up to our windows, but the driver dismissed them with an
imperious wave and I think most of them were intimidated by the rather grand
car and were afraid to approach.
In any case beggars are concentrated in
tourist areas and I didn’t see more than a few during the whole time we were in
India, in spite of great poverty. India struck me as a happy place too. People
smile far more than in Paris, and even the poorest women dress elegantly in
their bright saris. I saw a young woman carrying a huge bundle on her head,
with the weight supported by a crown of rags. She wore an orange sari and
swayed as gracefully as a dancer. She looked like a queen.
We went home and got dressed in our new Indian clothes. I got a lot of compliments on my choice of churidar. I began to notice that the
stylish younger women often prefer churidar
or salwar kameez to a sari—it’s much
easier to move in. 
After another magnificent lunch at a marble-floored hotel,
we made our way past a carpet of flowers 
and down a hall of family members to the
room where the wedding itself took place.The family members of the bride stand
and greet the Baraat Swagaat, or
members of the groom’s family who arrive. Waiters meet them with trays of drinks and snacks. 
The bride’s family is not allowed to
eat or drink until all the groom’s family has eaten and drunk. However, little
by little all these customs are taken less seriously. It used to be, also, that
widows were not allowed to wear bindi
on their foreheads and were not invited to weddings. In sophisticated circles
these cruel traditions are dying out and certainly at this wedding they were
not followed.
After the Baraat, the wedding
began in a room with a dais 
and pillars trailing jasmine garlands. The bride’s father has become more religious as he has gotten older, and
he made sure we had the booklet (decorated on each page with swastikas) that
explained the entire ceremony. I was grateful for it, as the ceremony was in
Hindi.
The bride and groom were led to the dais by their parents and siblings. All the men and boys in the immediate
families wore turbans and long tunics. They looked princely. The pretty
young bride, dressed in fuchsia-colored silk, with an unaccustomed nosering
attached to jewelry on her veil, and her handsome groom (who said earlier
that he was "counting every minute" till they were married) sat on
low golden seats before a brazier. They put garlands over each other’s heads,
then sat and together threw various offerings symbolizing the qualities of a
good marriage into the brazier. 
Then their hands were tied together in a red
cloth, and they walked slowly seven times around the sacred fire. The first six
times, the girl leads--this signifies that she still has a choice, that the
marriage is not compulsory. In fact, the bride has known her groom for years
and it is a love marriage, although the parents approved it. The seventh time,
the boy leads, to signify that "he must take the lead in the hard decisions
of the family."
The ceremony took hours and hours and it was amazing to me that most people treated it
so casually. The entire time that the ceremonies were going on, wedding guests
walked in and out talking, children ran around, and cell phones rang, each one
with a different, long, melodious ring (one played "Jingle Bells"!).
I noticed that the groom's family was much more solemn about the wedding than
the bride's family. They are Kashmiris, tall and fair, and do not share the
same religious beliefs as the bride’s family.
There are some things that are the same as in our weddings, though. At the
end, everyone threw rice. Then the young couple left for a while to go to the
temple, and the rest of us went to a room overflowing with delicious snacks. There
were pastries from a French chef, and silver-paper sweets where you actually
eat the silver paper, and all kinds of delicious specialties. This was after a
big lunch, and before a big dinner that evening at the reception. 
We went home
to our own hotel 
and slept for a while, then changed into more formal clothes—I wore a pink
evening gown—and went to the reception. It was strange that it was not formal
either—lots of dressed-up children running around wildly excited; women in the
most beautiful saris I had ever seen; men incongruously dressed in summery or
even casual suits or in magnificent tunics; more delicious food and drink,
including many colorful kinds of fresh-fruit drinks I had never tasted before:
watermelon, guava, coconut, tamarind and lychee. I met a lot of Indians who had
lived or worked or had family in the United States, Canada and the U.K. One had
moved back two years ago after spending most of his life since age 13 in New
York City. He said the hardest things to adjust to were not driving (no
highways; everyone has a driver) and not walking (people in his class take cars
everywhere and essentially never walk around the city).
The Fourth Day of the Wedding
Someone in the extended family has a connection in the Indian movie business, and several carloads of us
were
lucky enough to get a private tour of the Bollywood Film City. On the way there, a long
drive, I saw my first elephant in India! It was on a major suburban road,
a working elephant carrying lumber. “That brings you good luck for the day,”
said a family friend. A little later there was a herd of goats, even though we were still in a completely built-up area. We also saw cows in the road, and this mosque, floating in the bay. There are quite a lot of Muslims in India even after all the troubles, and the women often are dressed like dust-covers in those scary-looking black tents with a slit for their eyes, which make a strange contrast with the brilliant saris of the other women.
The drive out to the Film City was a good reality check after the wealthy part of the city we
had seen so far. There were new buildings going up all around, with laborers
swarming up rickety-looking bamboo scaffoldings even twenty stories above the
ground. 
The buildings were all of concrete, with floors so thin you hated to
think what would happen to them in an earthquake. Next to a modern building, already a bit dilapidated after a year in the Indian sun and monsoon,
would be a vast neighborhood of people living under plastic tarpaulins stretched over
sticks or attached to trees, people living in holes under the highway or in
construction sites. There were a few half-naked children, and a lot of men just sitting or squatting, waiting for time to pass;
but no women who weren't walking or working. There are banyan trees in the rich neighborhoods, but in the poor ones there were no trees at all. I suppose they had been cut down for firewood.
Driving through the gates at Film City, we suddenly left the crowded,
chaotic, dusty city and entered another world, the India of the idyllic past. 
Film City is 500 acres of land on a high hill, with forest, lakes, fields and an old-fashioned
temple (there is no god in the temple, since they change it according to the
script). One building has a Christian church set—there are plenty of Christians in
India—and around the corner of the church is a courthouse and school. There are
also a hill-station villa, an old-fashioned country village, and a palace. We
passed two movies being filmed, one with some young men off in the grassy hills
below the road and one right in the road, with a gorgeous girl in a red sari
sitting in the back of a covered oxcart.
In the studio we saw the set of a famous television show, a dance
competition for couples. The Indian relatives were rather disappointed that the
star wasn’t there. But then we all got back in a bus and drove to
another set, in a shabby neighborhood outside Film City, where we watched a
weekly television show being shot. It is the story of a rich girl who marries
into a middle-class family. 
The girl who plays her was small and girl-next-door pretty, with
big expressive eyes. But when we saw her on the screen as the cameras were running, she metamorphosed into a subtle and gorgeous actress. She was unpretentious and
friendly. She let all the children and adult fans have their photos taken with her and patiently
signed autographs, smiling, even with her lunch plate getting cold in front of her. Of course,
I had never heard of her, since the show is in Hindi, but on the way back to
our hotel I suddenly noticed huge billboards featuring her on the main roads in town.
In the evening we had the best food yet—south Indian, served on a banana
leaf atop a plate. The chef is famous in the city. However, I felt very awkward
all evening. The instructions on the invitation said “Casual,” so I wore a long cotton tunic and white linen trousers. All
the other women were in silk saris or churidars.
It was so annoying thinking I had just the right thing at home in the closet!
Of course, this would have to be the day when I was included in all the wedding
photos.
The Fifth Day of the Wedding
After the wedding, all the hospitality is supposed to be the responsibility
of the bridegroom’s family. Today we took a boat from this colonial monument, built to greet a visiting British king, to a resort across the bay. 
Our hosts had
booked an entire air-conditioned ferry for the family group. That was
wonderfully refreshing, for even though it was November, the beginning of the cool season
(and the wedding season), it was so hot in the sun waiting for the boat that I
almost melted. D and I gave up and bought tacky tourist hats from a one-armed
vendor. He couldn't peel the hats we wanted off from his stack, and I was touched to see how several other vendors came rushing over to help him when they saw him struggling.
We filed onto the boat, about 70 of us including a lot of kids, all cousins.
Our friends’ families are from Rajasthan and Kashmir originally, and have much
lighter skin than most Indians. 
Blue, green and hazel eyes are common, and
there are several blonds in the family, including one girl who is so very
English-rose-looking that for the first two days, I thought she was just a
friend of the family. Indian families live together—cousins grow up in the same
house or city apartment building, and call each other “brothers” and “sisters.”
The little ones are constantly being held and petted or made much of by older
cousins, aunts, and uncles, and the old people are never left lonely. I felt a
pang of wishing my own children could have known that wonderful feeling of
being surrounded by allies in life, a big family that loves you with all your
quirks. I lived like that as a child in Louisiana, and we still have more of it
than most Americans; but once it’s lost, it’s lost: it would take several
generations to reconstitute the large, close extended family that most Indians
take for granted. It has disadvantages, of course, including the nepotism that
plagues Indian politics and business, but also huge advantages—everyone can
find someone they like to be with in such a large group, and people learn
toleration and pleasant behavior because they have to live with others with
very different personalities.
As we watched the scenery go by, servants walked around offering trays of
snacks and drinks and two photographers took pictures. Indian music played
tinnily in the background. When we landed, there was a beautiful empty beach.
We got onto three buses and headed for a small resort. As the bus sped past
children on ox-carts, villages and flamboyant new villas, our friends’ family
started a Hindi song contest. You had to sing a song that started with the last
letter of the song before it. It was a bit frustrating not to understand a
single word of the funny things that were being shouted out and sung, but the
general hilarity and the interest of the passing countryside were
compensations. When we got to the resort, it had the usual shabbiness of India,
but the swimming pool was impeccably clean (I discovered that upper-class
Indians are fanatical about clean water) and there was a cricket ground, where
the boys were soon playing a pickup game. Cricket is much more popular in India
than in England, and I had seen small raggedy boys playing cricket in the slums. As
we arrived, we were each handed a large coconut with a straw in it, 
and for the
first time in my life I had fresh coconut milk—refreshing and cool on a hot
day. An emcee oversaw an afternoon of music and games, then we had an outdoor
picnic lunch prepared by the resort and had to get back on the buses—the ferry
couldn’t wait.
In the evening D met an old friend of his who has become a minor Bollywood
movie star. It was really fun catching up with him—they hadn’t seen each other
for twenty years. In the plane on the way home, we saw him on-screen for the first
time--he played a bureaucrat in the inflight movie.
That night, my last evening in India, was spent in what used to be a
Majarajah’s garden. It is now the private garden of a large apartment building
near the ocean, where one of the bridegroom’s uncles lives. 
It was a
cloudless, pleasant night, and the trees in the garden were hung with tuberose
and marigold garlands and festooned with colored lanterns. The women were all
in beautiful saris—although several confessed to me that after five days of
wedding celebrations they were ready to get back to their normal,
easy-to-live-in clothes—and looked very decorative themselves. Even the little
boys ran around in gold tunics and white trousers. What struck me at this
point, though, was that everyone seemed exhausted. The newlyweds were obviously
tired from constantly being on show (they are going to New Zealand for their honeymoon), but even all the guests seemed tired. One
of the bride’s aunts told me she goes to 25 or 30 weddings a year. For us this
wedding was a once-in-a-lifetime event, but here people spend major parts of
their lives attending them!
We had just enough time to return to the hotel and pack, then leave for the
airport in the middle of the night. The Indian army officer came with the
driver to see us off. Everything went well, we could sleep on the plane, and
before we knew it we were back in Europe. It’s time to get ready for
Thanksgiving day after tomorrow.
Paris is freezing cold after India! Today is the first day I needed hat and gloves and a real winter coat. I went to the marché to buy flowers and groceries for Thanksgiving, and saw these truffles for sale at 70 euros a kilo. These are Chinese truffles, which the French fulminate against. The French ones are far more expensive.
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