Rich's Indian Odyssey: Wedding Season

This past week I’ve managed to get myself to three more Indian weddings. Two Punjabi and a rare treat - a Jain wedding. The first two weddings were (in a roundabout way) due to Bobby’s connections, which extend to some absurdly wealthy industrialist families. He received an invitation to attend a marriage ceremony between two such families last weekend. As the wedding was touted to display a level of extravagance and fanfare unusually excessive even for India’s elites, Bobby decided it best to invite a number of ex-pats to witness the spectacle. Prameet, Bart (a Dutch colleague) and I made our way to Delhi’s most blue-ribbon neighbourhood to attend the ceremony. I had already missed many of the festivities prior to the big day, but was eager to witness the Departure of Barat (that part of the ceremony when the groom rides to the ceremonial house on horseback – accompanied by much trumpet blasting).

As is now all too commonplace, India time kicked in with typical mischievousness and delivered us to the assigned street four hours late. I was annoyed as I thought I’d missed my second Barat in as many weddings, so I was happily surprised when we turned into the street just as the 200 drummers begin pounding their skins. We jumped out of the car (seconds before it became stuck in the procession) and quickly joined the assembly of hundreds of jubilant family members and friends surrounding the groom. Not personally knowing either the bride or groom, I was initially content merely to participate as a background spectator. However after receiving free drinks and having a beautiful cashmere sequined scarf placed around my neck I soon discarded this role in favour of much more central one. We all joined the throng of spinning Indians in front of the horse – that was decorated with the most incredible golden saddle and robes. As the spinning and drumming reached fever pitch I realised that we hadn’t spotted Bobby anywhere – after all he had most likely arrived on time and was probably situated in a much more subdued part of the parade. I stepped out of the fracas to call him, and after several attempts (owing to just how thunderous 200 drummers can be) we managed the following conversation:

Rich: Where are you?

Bobby: In the pavilion, where are you?

Rich: In the procession, it’s fantastic!

Bobby: What procession? The Barat finished four hours ago.

Rich: Oh.

Bobby: You’re at the wrong wedding.

Indian weddings, as one can well imagine, are infused with many religious and cultural features. Accordingly, there are many factors that dictate when the optimal time for nuptials falls. Much of this has to do with the positions of various stars and planets, but practicalities also play a role – it’s currently a popular time to be hitched because of the mild climate. This leads to a concentration of weddings around this period, with the month of December known as ‘wedding season’. This aspect of Indian wedding tradition is relevant as it goes some way to explaining how we managed to crash the wrong wedding (or, actually, the right wedding given the freebies we were given). On that very night there were an estimated 36,000 ceremonies taking place in Delhi alone. Boggles the mind.

We sheepishly untangled our car from the procession and drove a little way down the road to the wedding we at least had a loose invitation to. It lived up to Bobby’s superlatives. We arrived for the reception, having missed all formalities. One of the family’s mansions had been transformed into an incredible Aladdin’s cave – complete with waterfalls of candlelight and thousands of curtains made from jasmine flowers threaded together. The bride was festooned with enough diamonds to start wars.

Later in the week many of us from the office attended Deepak’s wedding – a traditional Jain ceremony. Jainism emerged around the 16^th century and is quite closely aligned to Buddhism. As a consequence, they hold the title of the fussiest eaters of any culture. They are super-vegetarian, and are further restricted from eating root vegetables in case insects are hurt during cultivation (how did such religions respond to the discovery of micro-organisms?). Despite this, Deepak and his family laid on a fantastic banquet for approximately one billion guests. During our attendance, we witnessed a number of ceremonies, the purpose of each being hard to decipher. I wasn’t able to pinpoint the actual moment Deepak and Neha were officially married. There were exchanges of floral necklaces, fireworks, cheering, photos of the couple, but no actual moment when I could definitively conclude that a marriage had taken place. I left the wedding at midnight, and discovered the next day that they actually tied the knot at around three in the morning.

Interesting discoveries:

Indians invited to weddings may not even acknowledge the ceremony – instead opting to linger around the buffet all night. This is totally acceptable, and the invited majority will do this.
Wedding film crews love singling out foreigners. There were several large screens positioned around Deepak’s wedding and quite often I’d take a look at these only to find footage of me and the fellow white folk broadcast while engaged in typically banal activities – such as eating, or standing.

Administrative facts:

Curry-o-meter: 49 consumed.
There are over seven million Jains in India.
The Fylfot is the most holy of Jain symbols – it’s also known as the swastika.
The proportionate split of weddings by culture that I’ve now attended in my lifetime: Australian (17%), Jewish (17%), Indian (67%)

Song of the moment:

I Am The Walrus, by The Beatles.