Wedding - Day 1
The first night of the wedding begins with a ladies event, in which all the women are painted with henna dye, called mehndi, on their hands and arms. The dye leaves a brown temporary tattoo that lasts about a week. We were encouraged to wear traditional dress. Most of the ladies were wearing sarees or kurtas. The men wore kurtus. For kicks, some of the American men got mehndi, which is apparently outrageous to the Indians.
Here I am getting mehndi on a couple of fingers. I opted not to get too much and to get it only on the back of my hands, for fear of accidentally smearing it on my face or on other guests.
Karin had it done on her palms, which I imagine required some skill not to get it everywhere when eating and drinking that night. We found out that the woman applying mehndi to Karin had lots of family in Plano, TX, which is just outside of Dallas. Very small world!
Robyn getting mehndi:
I wish I had pictures of the bride’s mehndi--it was very elegant and detailed and went up her arms and legs. The tradition is to hide the groom’s name somewhere in the design. The groom gets to look for it on their wedding night, a fun game no doubt. Here is some more elaborate mehndi:
Later in the evening, when the mehndi was dry, it flaked off revealing the dyed skin underneath. The next day it was even darker. Within a week it was very faint, and by the time I returned home, two weeks later, it was barely perceptible.
A funny thing I noticed the night of the mehndi party: there were small piles of brown mehndi clay everywhere--on table cloths, chairs, the floor--it just flaked off all the guests. Plus, it was very satisfying to pick at it. I kept feeling paranoid that I was going to get it in my dinner. I guess Indian wedding guests are used to this, but all this dirt sprinkled around seemed such an odd contrast to the fanciness of the rest of the event.
After the ladies mehndi event, the men started to arrive and cocktails were served. And, just like in the Bollywood movies, the groom, Sonesh, entered the room dancing, accompanied by a dozen frenetic professional dancers. It was very impressive. I didn’t get any pictures of his grand entrance or of the sweet moment when the bride, Erin, recognized his reluctance to dance alone for another 20 minutes and joined him. Then, the family came up to the front and danced for all of us. I got this quick shot of the bride and her sister dancing. (There were so many professional photographers that it was hard to get a good shot of any of the week’s activities.)
Sadly, the above picture is the only one I have of the bride (back to camera) that turned out at all. It does not do her justice. Every night she looked more elegant than the last. It made me rethink how I should have done my wedding!
Later in the evening, many professional dancers did their thing. There were dancers dressed as peacocks, bulls, and various other animals. Some women did what I assumed are traditional dances, such as dancing on bowls, dancing while spinning plates, and dancing while balancing things on their heads (see below).
Then, the whole thing deteriorated into at least an hour of sexy/coy solo dancers who had bells on their ankles and danced/flirted with the male guests. The male guests (and eventually female guests, too) would dance up to the lady one at a time and shake a 100 rupee note or two at her and then let it fall to the floor at her feet. An assistant would pick up the rupees (so that she wouldn’t slip on them? I’m not sure).
Shopping in Bombay
So I just *had* to buy sarees for some of the wedding events. Okay, no one had to twist my arm. This look on my face that appears to be complete boredom, shyness, or retardation is really just what I look like when I have died and gone to fabric-lover heaven. I *loved* the saree shop and spent four hours choosing and buying 2 sarees. I bought the teal one next to me. It was gorgeous. Please help invent an excuse to wear it again!
I didn’t buy this one, but I wish I had.
Shopping for jewelry with Karin and Robyn:
Sadly, my camera broke when I was getting dressed by the professional saree draper. Someone in the world has pics of me and my friends wearing these elegant getups, but I have yet to get my hands on them. After two nights of having a professional dress me, I was ready to get my clothes on by myself and wore Western clothing (Western as in European/American, not cowboy—doh, I kept getting this confused!).
Wedding - Days 2-5
Because my camera broke, I have no pictures from the rest of the wedding, which was amazing, of course. There were many events involving dancing, both professional/traditional dancers and family members dancing, plus general dance-floor grooving to Indian pop music. We ate delicious food and drank too much wine every night. Let me tell you—I have discovered the limit to how many nights in a row I can be spoiled comfortably: it is 3. On the fourth and fifth nights, it really seemed silly to be dressed up once again and eating from yet another sumptuous buffet. Of course, I’m only pretending to complain. It was very fun. My hosts were very generous.
The actual wedding day was pretty cool—day 3, if I remember correctly. The women all wore sarees and the men wore western style suits and brightly colored turbans. I wish I had pictures, because the turbans were my favorite part. We did a celebratory procession with a live band and all of us dancing and jubilating around the block. The streets were crowded with onlookers. The groom brought up the end of the parade in a horse drawn carriage. It was too hot to dance, but we danced anyway, though less exuberantly near the end.
The wedding itself took place under a tent strewn with long, fragrant flower garlands. The bride and groom and their families sat in the tent and said many blessings, vows, etc. Then they ate things and burned things in a ceremonial way. It was very pretty. The funny part was that the Indian guests talked through the whole ceremony and answered cell phones and got up for snacks. I was told that this is pretty common.
Touring Mumbai
We visited several sites in Bombay, including this Jane temple:
Janism is some form of Hinduism, but seems to have a lot of Buddhism mixed in with it. The Janes do not eat meat or kill any animals. They wear face masks (some of the time) to prevent themselves from inhaling and killing bugs. Their temples were gorgeous, with intricate carving and colorful paintings and statues.
The Janes had some strict rules for visiting their temple, including removing your shoes. I regret to say that I broke at least one of these rules but couldn’t help myself.
Karin, Robyn, and Molly visit the Hanging Gardens of Mumbai. They had a decent explanation for the criminally misleading name, but I forget what it was.
A little Bollywood:
This sign claims that this is a peacock topiary:
Here is the main train station in Mumbai:
I’m very sad to say that few of my pictures of people came out. Missing are pictures of Deena (a fabulous designer from NY), John (Robyn’s charming boyfriend), and the bride and groom, Erin and Sonesh, as well as their very sweet siblings. But, here are my hotel roommates Karin and Jon. They were *this* fun to hang out with : )
Jon was the one who taught me how to interpret the India head-nod, which looks an awful lot like someone shaking their head “sorry, no” but actually means something like, “sure, why not.” If he had not pointed this out to me, I would have never survived the second part of my trip.
Touring Aurangabad
For the second week of my trip I traveled alone, but I made many friends including many Indian students, a Belgian man, and woman from Ghana. It was kind of a relief to have some peace after so much wedding action. I never got sick from the water or food, never got mugged or groped or threatened, but I did get ripped off many times by auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers. It wasn’t really a problem financially; it just wore down on my self esteem after a while. You start to feel a bit unwelcome when people try to screw you all the time. I can handle the tourist up-charge (that makes sense given the cost of living difference). I just hate the little tricks the drivers sometimes used, such as them stopping after a fair price was negotiated and they are half way there and them acting like they just realized it is farther and should cost more. Or, them claiming that the international airport is different than the domestic airport and costs more/less (always in their favor). There is a free 5 minute shuttle between them--there is no reason they should cost 100 rupees different! Anyway, that kind of thing left a bad taste in my mouth.
Aurangabad was beautiful and the people were much friendlier and less money-grubbing of tourists. My hotel was rather disgusting compared to our lush accommodations in Bombay, but I can’t complain when it was just $10 a night for a room with AC, cable, and hot water. However, it had roaches (eek!) and the electricity kept cutting out at random times.
The caves at Ajanta and Ellora were just gorgeous. These are human-made caves, cut out of a cliff side by monks over a few centuries. Some of them were cut by Buddhist monks, others by Hindus, and still others by Janes. It was hard to get a good picture because of the lack of lighting, but I made a few attempts. Here are some interior and exterior shots:
Cave exterior:
Buddhas:
Cave interior:
Spiritual moment captured:
Even more exciting than the caves was seeing this crazy old fort that was carved out of a mountain top. It had 7 retaining walls, a moat (that used to be filled with crocodiles and snakes) and a dark labyrinth with bats hanging from the ceiling that flew at my face during the torch-lit walk--omigosh it was thrilling! The only word I understood from the tour was “Dracula.” It is far more frightening to take a tour in a labyrinth when you don’t know what the guide is saying. You don’t hear/understand the important warnings, such as “I’m about to extinguish the torch to show you how dark it is in here,” or “Watch out for that impossibly treacherous stair case,” or “Those creatures hanging just six inches from your head are bats.” The Indian children who were on the tour seemed to find my reactions to these surprises quite amusing.
The tip of the fort is tiny looking structure at the top of the mountain. In the foreground is a Hindu temple that has been converted into a mosque.
Temple interior:
Woman carrying water:
View from the fort:
Torch-lit tour:
bats!
I saw saree weavers:
And, I saw the Mini Taj Mahal! Apparently, I was fortunate to have seen this one first. It seemed quite large to me, so when I saw the big Taj, I was not disappointed as many tourists are apt to be. The Mini Taj too is made of marble, though it doesn’t have as much marble and it has fewer precious stones.
On my last night in Aurangabad, the monsoons came. It was pretty fun to see all the Indians looking so darned pleased to see rain and cool weather. And it was like a wall of water and rivers for streets.
Touring Delhi
Delhi was not nearly as nice as Aurangabad or even Bombay. It was even hotter, dustier, poorer, and it smelled. On my last day there I finally looked up what 43ºC is in Fahrenheit—YIKES! It’s a good thing I didn’t know earlier in the trip. Plus, this is not a dry heat folks. It is muggier than any place I have ever been, including the freaking Amazon. On top of that there is this constant dusty haze, which the locals claim is from kicked-up dust, but I can’t imagine that pollution isn’t also part of it. (Most of these pics are blurry due to my camera problems, but many are blurry because that is what it was like. You could barely see anything for all the dust.)
Here is a Delhi street scene:
What you cannot see in any of these pictures are the ever-present hordes of beggar children. It was a big shock to see such abject poverty. And, these kids were very good at their job. They followed me around constantly, begging for food and money. It was very heartbreaking. They had many tricks, including pretending to foam at the mouth, asking for food to feed their baby sisters, and saying sad things such as, “Madam, why do you hate me?” Aaugh, it killed me to hear a little girl say that to me. When I first came into Bombay from the airport, I was confused by what looked to me like night-shift construction workers taking a nap on the sidewalk. “Is it break time?” I thought. After about 5 miles of this (that is, after seeing perhaps 1,000 people), I realized that they simply were homeless people—and these were just the ones that I could see from the highway. It was horrible. India is very, very crowded.
I saw many packs of monkeys both in the country and in the cities, including seeing a pack of monkeys hanging on the sign of a convenience store and scampering about in front of the store. Nobody seemed to think this was odd. It was as if they were squirrels. So, the following picture is the saddest camera failure ever—I *swear* that this is an out-of-focus picture of a mother monkey with her newborn, nearly hairless baby. It was so cute! I am devastated that it did not turn out. I’m including it just because, well, I can dream that it will magically become more in-focus given a little time.
This monkey picture (actually from Bombay) is sad for a different reason. This leashed monkey did not look happy. His owner explained that everything was okay, because he didn’t have any teeth. I guess he didn’t realize that this was no comfort to a bunch of westerners. The monkey did some flips and play-fought with the owner. Very sad.
Despite Delhi’s lack of charm and general filthiness, I had lots of fun and took several tours around Delhi. I got to see some awesome temples, forts, and of course, the Taj Mahal.
Here’s a crazy astronomical structure for telling time (a big sundial, really, but has some fancy extras that I couldn't figure out in the translation):
… and one for telling when zodiac constellations are out:
This is Qutab Manur, a mosque structure:
It’s hard to say that the Delhi part of my trip was worth it because of how difficult it was to get home, but it’s hard to regret seeing the Taj. It really is gorgeous. I still haven’t developed those pics, but I’ll post them for all those interested when I finish the roll.
On the last day of my trip, at the airport, I finally figured out the India system for standing in line. Basically, ladies always can (and are expected) to skip to the front of the line. Also, a second corollary to the system is if you do not stand such that you are lightly touching the person in front of you, it appears that you are not in line. Thus, for the two weeks up until I made this discovery, people kept cutting in front of me. I would sputter in helpless confusion. Then, on the very last day I realized that really, you need to body check someone in order to get your food when ordering at a counter. Oh well, better late than never.
As a lovely Indian farewell, it took me 40 hours to get from Delhi to Chicago. I missed my connecting flight to Dallas and am still negotiating a way for Air India to reimburse me for taking a flight the next day. FYI to everyone you know for all time: NEVER fly Air India!!!
My layover in Frankfort was a relief. As disorienting as it was to be in a random city with an unknown time zone and a language in which I know only a few useless phrases, I was still pleased to be back in the West. I could barely brush my teeth effectively because I was grinning so much about getting to rinse my tooth brush in tap water. The hotel was free because of the airline snafu, but it was pretty swank and the bed so much more comfortable than anything in India, including the 5-star place we stayed at for the wedding. The funny thing is that Air India made super-special accommodations for the delayed passengers so that the Frankfort hotel served us only Indian food, cooked with a German interpretation (i.e. badly, over spiced, and kind of sour tasting). When the waiter put down the plate and said proudly, “Here is your Indian spiced soup and special Indian main course,” I almost cried of sadness. Of all the suspicious Indian food that I ate and dodgy water situations I gave into in the previous 2 weeks, I was actually most in danger of getting ill from the Indian food the Germans fed me right before my 8 hour trip across the Atlantic. Fortunately, I didn’t get anything worse than heartburn, so I shouldn’t complain, but it was pretty funny.
I did not see a single elephant, darn it.
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