My year in India: The Wedding

I once commented to Evelyn about just wanting to look attractive, for a change. Being here I have let things slip a little shall I say which makes for a pretty scary sight. (There was a reason I wore makeup!) So the perfect time to dress up is a wedding.

Evelyn and I came home after work as we were to meet our colleagues at around 7 p.m. to go to the wedding. It was actually very pleasant getting dressed and trying, I said try I didn’t succeed, to make myself look attractive. Evelyn looked beautiful as always. So we spent over an hour getting ready which is a long time considering I normally roll out of bed, put some clothes on, try and tame the ‘fro and wait around for a couple of hours as I always seem to get up too early for work.

We head over to the office where all of the ladies are looking lovely, jump into the cars and head over to the wedding.

When we get there we are introduced to the lovely bride and ask what time the ceremony starts – which was 11 p.m. so we were there in plenty of time. We take some photos, nearly start a riot as everyone wants to get into the photos and we’re then herded to some tables and chairs for dinner. Dinner was delicious and it was a little bit like being in a quick fire round of eating – people come and go pilling up your leaf plate with all sorts of delicious treats, tarka dhal, matar paneer and pickle. So I eat this up and all is good with the world. Apart from when I look up. Now you wouldn’t think that eating with your fingers takes that much skill, but actually it’s more difficult than it looks. So when you haven’t quite perfected it (bits of rice stuck to face etc.) the last thing you wanted to see is a rather large group of people with cameras… all pointing your way and the thing that brought me the most joy, a video camera! I’m rather glad I won’t get to see any of the photos as the effort I went to will be quickly dashed away I feel.

We then stand up to go and wash our hands and then… we leave! We all pile back into the cars and off we go. Evelyn and I are a little perplexed but on asking our colleagues the wedding ceremony takes hours and there probably wouldn’t be room for us. It was very generous of Manoranjan to invite us to the wedding; bearing in mind they feed 800 to 1000 people at the weddings I can understand the need for a systematic approach! So we were fed delicious food, paid our respects and then left again in around about an hour. I actually think it’s the perfect way to attend a wedding.