THE WEDDING
The actual wedding ceremony was held at an enormous party plot on the edge of Ahmedabad. We arrived at the wedding space at about 5 for with ceremonies leading up to the wedding taking place until 6, then came the elaborate wedding ritual intoned by two priests in Sanskrit who were sitting at a distance and led by a priest with a blue vest beside a low alter with a flame burning within it, and finally late in the evening a meal was served to the 4 to 5000 attendees by hundreds of white hatted cooks and women in beautiful saries, I was driven home at ten with the socializing and photo taking ending at about midnight.
But first a description of the party plot. After a long entryway festooned with thousands and thousands of cut flowers and silver Greek statues you came upon an enormous field with 10 or 15 large pavilions in white and pink filled with comfortable heavy chairs and tables.
Around the edge of the party plot were fifteen or so long serving areas each with a number of white hatted cooks.
And in the center of the plot were rows of comfortable chairs where several thousand people could sit and socialize as they watched the ceremony on a high stage at a distance in front of them without being able to see the actual ceremony.
The back of the stage was a huge bank of fresh cut flowers and above the stage were streamers hanging down with rose buds attached, hanging over the ceremony. On each side of the stage were thirty comfortable chairs for attending family members.
That sets the stage a little bit, which you can see in the photographs. By five the hundreds of peole of the family of the bride and friends were socializing within when drumming announced the arrival of the groom and his family as they came in crowd of several hundred.
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The groom, Dharav, a down to earth and pleasant guy, had chosen not to come on a horse, but rather to arrive in a special car accompanied by his family on foot. As they neared the wedding plot a group of twenty red turbaned drummers began drumming, men from the groom‘s party entered and then thirty or so women began dancing the garba as they led the groom, under a red umbrella, through the gate where the bride‘s party was lined up to welcome them. A group of women with pots on their heads led the bride‘s family’s welcome. The dancing became faster and faster, the drumming more rapid and insistent. The bride welcomed the groom with a ceremony and then the couple were escorted down to the stage in the front where they first heard a long lecture by the chief Hindu priest about the meaning of the wedding ceremony (which would be conducted over a loudspeaker in Sanskrit which no one in the audience would understand)
After the speech the long wedding ceremony was conducted by the priests who instructed the marrying couple and their parents and relatives in what to do with the ritual being more important than understanding. They were tied together and then walked around the sacred fire.
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The marriage ceremony concluded with photographs taken of the newly married couple with immediate relatives, then less immediate relatives and then friends and other invitees, who also brought gifts for the young couple. At this point the crowd, who had been seated and watching, began to disperse to the buffet tables. But soon after the end of wedding ceremony the chief minister of Gujarat arrived with his entourage, blessed the couple, gave a speech and left. An hour later when I was showing my son Tom on Facetime the party plot, the couple was still on stage getting photos taken with well wishers. I don‘t know how long that lasted but I think was still going on after I had eaten and was on my way, at 10 p.m., back to the apartment where I was staying. I was exhausted and the bride and the groom and the mother of the bride looked as if they could drop. It was a wedding like no other and a marvelous day.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 