Hindu Weddings

Hindu weddings
A friend of mine, Lorraine had introduced me by email to a good friend of hers, a guy called Abhey. Abhey's drinking ability had given us a day long hangover when he first visited us in McLeod, and now we travelled to his hometown of Palumpur to go a Hindu wedding. We were quite honoured by this, although it transpired that in a Hindu wedding every man and his dog turns up, often just for the free grub and frivality. I would be well at home!
Rachel and Jade our french friend from McLeod who'd also been invited got dressed in their beautiful Salwar Kameez's (Punjab suits), and Abhey's friend Ashish picked us up in his little Tata car and brought us to Abhey's family home.
It was quite nice to see the family side of party-boy Abhey. As all we'd seen so far was a penchant for alcohol and socialising, it was quite levelling to see his family with his cute kids running around being kids. His wife Pratima brought chai (which surprisingly wasn't laced with vodka) and found some bangles that Rach managed to squeeze over her hands without the need for ky jelly. After going through the photo albums and repeated mistaking Abhey's son for his daughter, we were taken to the wedding pre-party.
It felt a bit like a movie star arriving at the Oscars - a hundred or so people fixated on us as see descended down the stairs into the party. Within seconds I had a rum in my hand, a turban on my head, and a crowd of people around me singing (what felt like) Dance Monkey, Dance! My hybrid of 'Screwing the Lightbulb' with my more orthodox Hard House chest popping and head nodding seemed to entertain until it was time to depart to the main event.
Oh course, nothing could be quite as straight forward as to just go to the event. Having picked up various friends en route, we made our first stop (of many) at the roadside to drink rum. I could just picture the look on a passing policeman's face back home, but here this was acceptable behaviour!
We also stopped to drink rum and buy food, and again for rum and to eat the aforementioned food. Any excuse.
When we finally got the the wedding, dancing was already underway. All of us got dragged into the thick of it - this time Rach and Jade were much happier getting involved, much to the delight of a few old men who were also dancing.
We got moved inside to see the ceremony. The bride and groom were sat down with the priest sat next to them mumbling in Hindi (I need to learn that!) and throwing water at a smouldering fire. The groom looking a little bemused, and the bride sobbing with the occasional wail thrown in for conviction from under her headscarf. Rachel pointed out that she looked a bit like Cousin It!
The photographers and video cameramen spotted us and instantly lit us up with studio lights, and the best man ushered us through to the front, trampling over women and children until we were sat next to the groom. The trampled ones were very sweet, they made a space for us to sit comfortably and asked us questions in English. We endeavoured to respond in pigeon Hindi and felt happy sat there - lots of smiles always puts you at ease.
Abhey's gang then decided it had been far to long since the rum had touched our lips, and pulled us out of the party to walk to a local drinking hole where we drank, sang and were merry. We then went back to the wedding, but findin out that food still wasn't ready, went back up the road and comendeared a local shop for he purposes of drinking. It quite bizarre how armed with a bottle of liquor you can pretty much turn anywhere in India into a drinking den.
The guys all seemed incapable to bow down to each other's drinking jaunts, almost like a bunch of teenagers egging each other on! I felt quite old (or boring!)
We finally went back to the wedding for food, which was a highly efficient affair feeding 300 people in an hour. We are quite getting used to eating with our hands, however sitting cross legged for 20 minutes for a lanky Englishman is crippling. I practically needed winching back to my feet.
The wedding continued into the night, finishing as all weddings do with family fights. We negotiated the punch-ups on our way out, and chose the most sober driver to take us home. 

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Part of trip: Rich and Rach travel the World

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