My Best friend's wedding - Part one

There was a silver lining to all the fickle happenings over the past few days, and that was my friend's wedding which took place last weekend ( 12th Of November, to be precise).

It was a wonderful experience in many ways. Generally we all go to weddings, right at the time of muhurtham, wish them well and fill our stomachs with all the goodies. But this was one mariage in which I was very much involved in the so called backstage work, which most of us do not get to see.

The girl in this case was a Bengali and the guy a Kannadiga. With not many people attending the wedding ( it happened in b'lore), due to the distance from Kolkata, it was left to a few relatives and friends to really manage the show on the girl's part.

Both the bride and the groom are really close to me, having worked on the same team for quite some time. So it was wedding bells for them after quite a marathon struggle to make this happen.

The wedding proved to be a confluence of cultures. I was made into "Kalash githi" , one who carried a kalash and remained by the girl's parents side for the entire marriage, as is the kannada custom. While I initially hated my frind for making me do this, I began thanking her later on, as I could get a great view of all the customs.

Indian marriages... Call them extravagant, call them ritualistic, complex and too long, you can never deny this..they are never boring.There is never a dull moment in them.There is so much of joy and best part of it is that they bring everyone together.(Atleast they are supposed to, but sometimes they turn into gossip melas)

Coming back to this wedding, it was mostly based on Kannada customs. To begin with, the bride performed Poojas for Tulsi and gauri. The came Kasi Yatra, where the groom starts off to Kasi, and the girl's father stops him midway and offers his girl's hand. With no other way other than accepting it, ;)) the groom changes his course of action. :))

When the girl was taken to the manadapam, a screen was held between the bride and the groom. The purohits chanted matras for about 15 mins, then right when the screen came down, the girl and the boy had to throw the Akshatha( rice and kumkum mixed) on each other.It is believed that the person who throws it first gains control of the family. They turned out to be a balanced couple as both of them threw it at the same time.

The climax was when the mangal sutra was tied by the groom..but there a was twist to this tale, a good one at that. As per the Bengali custom , sindoor was smeared on the girl's forehead, followed by covering the head with ghoonghat( a saree), all this happening with the sound of konch( shankh).

It was fantastic to see both the families taking pains to see that each other's tradition is followed and understood by the other person.

In all, I was treated to a sumptuous Indian wedding feast.
Wishing Deepak and Sreeparna a great life ahead :-)

PS:I've not narated much of the backstage action, hopefully that would follow in the next blog.