Written by: Leah Injaty
Weddings—you hate ’em or you love ’em. Well for me, I had no idea what to expect since I’ve never even been to an American wedding, let alone one across the globe. And so there I was, taking my first international solo flight after requesting a 2-week holiday from my super fun summer internship in Chicago. My dad and younger siblings had flown into India a few weeks earlier, since my sister was apparently supposed to intern at a local hospital, until she got sick from the “bacterial culture shock” in her stomach shortly after the wedding and had to leave early. I had no idea who the bride and the groom were, but apparently we had met the groom when he came to the US for the first time, and our dads are good friends. All I cared about was that I hadn’t visited my family in India since I was 12, and I was being invited to the epitome of Indian festivities, a $200k Indian resort wedding with dresses, food, and traditions I’ve always wanted to experience, so there was no way I would pass it up.
When I landed at Kempegowda Airport in Bangalore, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that I couldn’t connect to the airport WiFi without some mysterious code that I had no idea how to get. I tried asking some fellow travelers, but none of them spoke English well enough to point me in the right direction. Unsure of what I was supposed to do, I copied everyone else and filled out a slip of paper before entering customs, where they asked me a slew of questions about my purpose for traveling to India. After getting through customs, I passed through the fanciest duty-free store I’ve ever seen, with overly polite employees coming at me left and right asking if I needed help when I slowed down to look around. Outside the store, I finally found a kiosk where I could scan my boarding pass and get the WiFi code. It was at that moment that I gained a deeper appreciation for modern technology; I have no idea how people did this back before phones were ubiquitous.
Kempegowda Airport Duty-Free store
Fast forward to the wedding, after visiting my aunts, I was floored when I discovered from my sister that we would need six different dresses for all six events in order not bring bad luck to the couple. Keep in mind the entire wedding was 2.5 days. We stuffed our suitcases full of said dresses and drove to the resort, which was absolutely stunning. Apparently guests closer to the family got to stay in the resort, while the majority of people came to just the reception on day 2. What are these six events of South Indian weddings, you may ask? Let me fill you in on their cultural significance as well as my individual experience.
Haldi
Did someone say water balloon fight? No, seriously. They brought out water balloons at a traditional ceremony. Haldi is a wedding ritual where turmeric water is poured on the couple as a blessing, and to give them “radiant glow” for their wedding, as yellow is considered auspicious. You’ve never seen this much yellow decor in your life, trust me.
At first, they were sitting ducks as we poured bucket after bucket of turmeric water over their heads, until things got a little more chaotic. I was having a little too much fun until, in a battle for the bucket, a few people turned on me, and I got a face full of the turmeric water, which didn’t sit well with my contacts. By the time someone brought water balloons, all hell broke loose, and all the prim and proper aunts and uncles went inside to get away from the splashing. Needless to say, my dress did not survive very well. Afterward, there was a “rain dance” where we ran underneath an array of sprinklers above our heads and danced to popular Bollywood songs in a big circle.
(Image 1) My dress before Haldi
(Image 2) Moments before disaster
(Image 3) My dress after Haldi
Mehndi
Or as we Americans call it, henna. Mehndi has strong cultural significance both in weddings and in general. In weddings, mehndi designs symbolize the love between the bride and groom, and the cooling effect of the eucalyptus that it’s made of is said to calm the nerves of the bride. Typically, wedding mehndi is the most elaborate mehndi a bride will receive in her life, with polished designs covering her hands, forearms, feet, and halfway up her calves. The bride isn’t the only one who gets to have mehndi, however. Artists traditionally do mehndi on all the women close to the bride, but even men are opting to get it done in modern times. There was even an adorable little kid we kept seeing throughout the wedding, and he told the artist he really wanted Spiderman drawn on his hand. We even befriended some other young people in their 20s who were friends with the groom at this event, whom we frequently met up with throughout the wedding.
My sister and I, after getting mehndi
Sangeet
Despite having an Indian name, it was essentially what you’d think of when you hear about an American wedding reception. There was food, crowd games, and dancing, and this event even had a dress code of “Western formal” instead of the typical Indian dresses (although I don’t think that’s the norm). My siblings and I are some of the only kids in our extended family to grow up in America, and we coincidentally look very western compared to our extended family, so this event made me feel a little less like a neon sign sticking out in the crowd. I spoke so “American,” in fact, that the groom’s father even had trouble understanding my English, and so there were many moments of my dad and sister “translating” my English to… English with an Indian accent.
I arrived fashionably late, and when I did, I saw my teenage brother on stage with a bunch of older ladies in their sarees playing that crowd game where the announcer says an item that you have to grab from the crowd, and the last person who comes back onstage is eliminated. He continued to be ahead of the game, sprinting through the aisles and grabbing items, but the real kicker was when it was him against one other lady. The announcer shouted “gray hair,” and my dad furiously ripped out some strands of his hair and yelled for my brother to come take it, and he did! As you can imagine, my brother stood victoriously on the stage as the other lady patted him on the back. Afterward, my sister and I, along with our new friends, went onstage for some dancing in, again, a big circle (for some reason that’s how Indian dancing always goes).
(Image 2) My “Western” outfit for the Sangeet
Varapuja
Coming from “vara,” meaning “groom,” and “puja,” meaning “worship,” varapuja is a ceremony to honor and welcome the groom before the wedding ceremony by the bride’s family. The family symbolically washes his feet and offers him flowers, rice, turmeric, and sweets. They also perform “aarti,” which is a ritual where one moves a lit wick in circles while reciting a prayer, and then moves their hands over the flame and then to the forehead to offer prayer.
Aarti being performed
We got up bright and early on the second day to watch the ceremony, not before changing into our fourth dress of the event. Seriously, we spent at least half the time changing outfits. Since I don’t speak Hindi, I struggled to follow along with what they were saying during the ceremony, but this had inspired me to later start learning Hindi on Duolingo, which I semi-successfully have kept up with. It was at this point that I started to realize just how much money was spent on all these beautiful decorations, but it was totally worth it in my opinion. They held a mini photoshoot for the couple right after, and everyone gathered around to watch. My family also took our own pictures, even my brother and dad, who don’t typically take them, because the scenery was absolutely unreal.
Reception
If you thought the Sangeet sounded like a wedding reception, you were sorely mistaken. This wedding reception had it all: fireworks, a walkway of flowers, smoke machines, and photographers for the 1000+ guests. And no, I did not accidentally add a 0. We didn’t get much time to talk to the couple since they had to greet everyone one group at a time as the guests came on stage to give gifts and take photos. We spent most of our time doing a complimentary photoshoot, eating at the buffet, and socializing.
My family in our fifth outfits of the weekend.
The reception meal was the only one not served on a banana leaf, which came as a surprise. Usually, we’d go to this one giant room with banana leaves at every seat, and the servers would come around with a food item and ask if we wanted any, like an assembly line. I always ended up taking too much and had to stay behind to finish; everything just looked so good that I couldn’t pass it up. I even tried taking a bite out of the banana leaf itself out of curiosity, much to my sister’s horror. The meal at the reception had a fancy menu with all the options, and you could go to each station to get your desired food. From the botanical theme to the fairy lights strung outside elegantly, everything about this event came straight out of a fairy tale.
Flower Bridge
Wedding Ceremony
Canopy for the wedding ritual
At first, we watched from a distance as friends, family, and priests performed aarti and other rituals, and then we all gathered around them, with me standing right behind the couple. One of the rituals involved sprinkling handfuls of rice in front of them before throwing the last few grains onto their heads as a blessing, and we took turns doing this in groups of two. When I said earlier that they tied the knot, I meant that literally. In some South Indian weddings like this one, the couple finalizes their marriage by tying a long red string called a “thali” around the other’s neck. Drums beat ceremoniously in the background as they finally tied it around each other, as everyone cheered for the newlyweds.
Priests pouring rice in front of the couple
As the sun came up and the festivities calmed down, we took some final pictures and had the chance to get to know the couple when there weren’t as many people. The bride confided in me that she didn’t sleep much since the wedding started, which wasn’t really a shocker. Although I did find out that the couple was going long distance again right after their wedding, which was a shocker. I truly hope that despite all the stress, they got the wedding of their dreams. After a few last pictures and hugs, we said our goodbyes and continued the rest of our travels in India.
It’s safe to say that I think weddings are officially ruined for me; I don’t think anything could surpass the grandeur of this one. Some of the ladies there commented about my sister and I really “making the most” of our first wedding experience, and I wholeheartedly agree. The friends I’ve made, from the Spiderman mehndi kid, to the family friend who hired a stylist for herself but had her style me and my sister, to the 20-somethings who were having the time of their lives, all have stuck with me to this day as a sense of community I’ve never experienced before. I can’t wait for my next trip to India to see not only my actual family, but this new family I’ve found.
À la prochaine,
Leah