The official wedding functions started Saturday morning. We were thrilled to be accepted as part of the groom’s family, but were surprised that the bride wasn’t included. Since weddings were traditionally arranged, there was little incentive for the families of the past to get to know each other. As this wedding followed tradition closely, the bride and her family were not included and were celebrating in their own way.
Davinder explained that poor girls were unable to afford bangles for their wedding day, so they started decorating with henna. The tradition has now stuck and even the ladies on the groom’s side of the family were happy to sit still for two hours while it dried. No surprise, but I wasn’t as patient, so I only had one hand done and passed on doing my feet. Luckily I had a little more patience than the 2-year-old who had her hands immediately wiped off before she smudged the designs.
In addition to the good fortune of having a park across from his uncle’s house, it was also lucky that there was an empty lot next door in which the caterers could prepare the meals for the various parties. It was best not to think about the lack of running water and bathrooms for the workers and just enjoy the food. We especially liked the bread that was cooked on the side of a barrel (again, it’s best not to think about what kind of chemical was previously in that barrel).
We didn’t bring the camera to the dinner on Friday night at Davinder’s mother’s brother’s house. We were surprised when we arrived to find lights hanging down the four storeys and a tent set up across the street. There were about 30 people for this catered dinner celebrating both Davinder and the wedding anniversary of his cousin. The top photo was taken on Saturday morning before the Bridal Mendhi Party began. That night there was a second party and the back of the tent was opened up and expanded to include a stage and dance floor as shown in this photo. Next door, an even larger tent was being built.
We should have taken a nap, but instead we went to Sector 17, the shopping district. This area was filled with very nice stores on the ground floor, but looked largely deserted on higher levels. There were some persistent beggars, who we were better prepared for with pens and candy on our second visit.
Despite not having a map, the driver eventually found our hotel in Sector 43 and our friend was in the lobby to great us.
This cow was being walked in the uncle’s neighborhood, where many of the events over the four days would take place. We saw haircuts given on street corners here as well as in Delhi. This city has a high concentration of Sikhs, a warrior offshoot of Hinduism that doesn’t believe in the caste system. Our friend’s family is easily identifiable as Sikhs by the men’s turbans; neither the men nor women typically cut their hair ever in their lives.
While we were travelling on a toll-highway, there didn’t seem to be any vehicles prohibited. There were tractors of all sizes and fancy painted trucks. The only big rigs seemed to be oil tankers. There also weren’t any lane restrictions or lanes for that matter. Everyone used horns rather than blinkers to communicate where they were headed. It seemed very random to me, but clearly had some pattern as we didn’t see any accidents in either direction.
A variety of animals also pulled carts along the highway including horses, donkeys and cows. Clearly they weren’t able to keep up with us when we hit 60MPH on the few segments that were far enough between villages.
