The Real Monsoon Wedding

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It was E.M Forster who commented: ´characteristics grow more vivid beneath the Indian sky´. Spend even a day in India and you´ll realise that what was said of 19th century India remains pertinent today. India is a land of contrasts: unique, beguiling and teeming with vigour, smells and colour. Sarees glow like exotic plumage through the flat, filtered brew of car fumes which carpet India´s city streets, vendours colonise street corners to sell their kaleidoscopes of fruit and vegetables; cattle, dogs and ragged children range around. Everywhere dirt, noise and thriving life. And nowhere is this uniquely Indian vibrancy more evident than in the Indian marriage tradition.

Nothing is done on a small scale in India. Its floods and earthquakes are biblical in proportion and its population is ungainly - 14.8 million in Bombay alone and fast-growing. The average number of wedding gifts dispatched to happy couples in Europe is around 70; whereas the Indian average tops 300. This is the country that witnessed the most ostentatious wedding in recent history - that of the sons of the Indian tycoon Subrata Roy, which cost a cool US $100 million. From the 27 orchard-strewn jets chartered to transport the Roy´s passengers, to the fleet of 200 Mercedes at the guests´ disposal, the celebration was half Diwali, half Disneyland. Such was the glittering guestlist at the Roy celebrations that Bollywood was forced to halt filming for a week. The six months, therefore, which traditionally elapse between the announcement of an Indian marriage and the chosen wedding date aren´t merely a formality. The time is often required so the bride´s family can dispose of sufficient property and possessions to cover the dowry and the lavish costs of the big day.

Preparation
The two week-long rituals and ceremonies of the Hindu wedding of Jaykumar Rawal, a 28-year-old politician and potentate from Dondaicha in the Indian province of Maharashtra, were - we were told - meticulously planned. Even the date and precise time of marriage was divined by a specialist astrologer, which explains the frequency of 4am Indian weddings. However, to us European guests of honour (one Spaniard, two Brits, a German and two Greeks) the celebrations were, from the outset, inscrutably chaotic. We arrived at Jaykumar´s palace - tired and befuddled from our 13-hour train journey from Mumbai - to an honour guard of menacing, thunderous drums and messy humanity as we were thrust into the front line of the groom´s party.

We were here to spend a few days in Dondaicha for the various preparatory celebrations of the groom´s family (the Bhavat) before travelling north to Satna, the bride´s hometown, for the culminating big day. The deranged hyperactivity we´d chanced upon was part of a two-day long bachelor´s party, or symbolic casting aside of Jaykumar´s single life. As the boys of our party joined the Bhangra-soundtracked insanity of swaying bodies and windmilling arms outside, I entered the palace´s ominous portals to meet the groom´s sisters and to be served endless cups of tooth-rottingly sweet chai and have my hands decorated in intricate henna tattoos, or Mehandi, which are an integral part of the preparations of womenfolk before any Hindu marriage (see box below).

The Mehandi and Sangeet (or musical party) in the run-up to the Hindu wedding are just two amongst the numerous rituals performed before the big day. A Hindu wedding is - symbolically - the marriage of two families in the eyes of the Hindu Gods and the progress of events reflects this. Scarcely an hour passes without another pujah ceremony (offering of gifts to the deities), or the distribution of sweets, eggs and money (which symbolise, respectively, a sweet life, fertility and prosperity). The sweet distribution was so profligate that, by day two, we were becoming slightly delirious due to the constant sugar intake and certain amongst the European contingent (who won´t be named) began stuffing pockets and handbags with the cloying crystalline sugar lumps.

The final - and most important - of the numerous preparations for Hindu marriage is the Ghari Puja, or prosperity prayer, which was performed the night before our departure for the wedding. Painted in alarming banana-yellow turmeric - which is said to cleanse, purify and beautify the skin - Jaykumar sat in front of the priest, who chanted and offered up gifts of rice, coconut, wheat grains, oil and spices to Ganesh, the Hindu elephant God. Jaykumar then passed a handful of grains to the priest, a promise of his continued altruism, despite his change in lifestyle… an important pillar of Hinduism. The groom´s mother then joined the ceremony, precariously carrying an earthenware pot on her head containing water, which Jaykumar´s brother Vicki cut with a knife to symbolically ward off evil spirits. Here the ceremony descended into the customary insanity as the groom´s clothes, an emblem of his old life, were torn off by friends and family.

Travelling to Satna The journey to Satna - a bustling concrete town in the province of Madhya Pradesh - was to take 15 hours. One of the most perplexing of Indian idiosyncrasies is their habit of communicating a misplaced sense of dire urgency about every event, however small. So, we were cruelly wrested from our slumber 6 hours early at 5am, feeling as if we´d just spent the night with our head attached to one of those machines used to test shock absorbers. Any hopes we´d nursed of catching up on our sleep on the train proved optimistic. We had barely sputtered and clanked away from the station when an insistent drum beat began reverberating down the train corridor and the first dishes of a feast of pungent, glistening pakoras and samosas were thrust into our hands. Nevertheless, time passed rapidly and we soon emerged blinking into the bright sunlight and blurry urgency of Satna station - with its welcoming sounds, smells and throngs of garland-bearing well-wishers. Thankfully, we were quickly whisked - in a now familiar display of Indian polarities - from pandemonium to a parallel universe of ludicrous five-star opulence, as starched flunkies fetched, carried and levitated us weary travellers to our rooms to prepare for the festivities ahead.

The ceremony
An Indian wedding is no spectator sport, even for ´most honoured European guests´. After the habitual four-hour delay, we were marshalled for a series of tasks and photocalls, from posing behind our host on stage, to chatting to inquisitive aunts. Everything was subject to conflicting instructions and hilarious confusion - were we supposed to be with the groom´s side or the bride´s? Were the females of our number supposed to sit in separate quarters with the women? When were we to hand over our wedding gifts? No one seemed to know for certain, although everyone had an answer. It is said that if you put the same question to an Indian three times you will receive three totally deferent answers, all delivered with increasing strength of sentiment.

However, by now we were growing accustomed to the vague, wobbling Indian head nod - which seemed, variously, to mean yes… no… or maybe… The main ceremony was scheduled for 10pm, necessitating (if any excuse is needed in India) a gargantuan buffet feast for lunch. So we heaped our plates high with the pungent vindaloos - a typical Indian wedding food as the vinegar used in its preparation acts as a preservative - and resigned ourselves to the will of Ganesh and our confused fate.

So, to the ceremony itself. If we thought that proceedings so far had been ostentatious, we were mistaken. From the horses weighted with gold and garlands, to the stretches of red carpeting and banks of sweet scented flowers, the mile-long wedding procession was the epitome of pomp. Only womenfolk close to the respective families were permitted into the inner sanctum of the wedding ceremony, and they sat, serried in the glittering rainbow ranks, to observe the ceremony, while the men commenced the party outside.

The ceremony itself was - as, by now we had begun to suspect - a lengthy affair, conducted in a respectful silence. Traditional Indian brides - and Satna, being in a northern Indian province is amongst the most observant of wedding tradition - wear pink and red saris on their wedding day, adorning themselves extravagantly with as much jewellery as possible, along with a ghunghat, or veil, worn in respect to the deities. The groom wears jodhpurs, a silk brocade suit, sword and turban.

Standing beneath a canopy (or mandap) separated by a cloth, the bride with her maternal uncle and bridesmaids stood behind her, the couple stood - sombre and pensive, the bride staring at the ground (as she has done for the days leading up to the marriage), the groom staring fixedly straight ahead as guests showered the pair with rice. Following lengthy chanting and ululating from the leagues of assembled priests, the curtain drops and the couple exchange fragrant flower garlands. The father of the bride - stoic and hushed - then offers his daughter to the groom, and the priest straps cotton around the wrists of the couple, to symbolise their new-found unity. Jaykumar then placed another potent symbol - the love neckclace - on the bride. The necklace is distinctive, with two semicircles to signify, we were told, the alliance of the two families.

As the ceremony drew to a close - to the soporific strains of low-pitched prayer chants - the bride dabbed the groom's forehead with sandalwood paste and he hers with red powder, to denote luck and acceptance. More offerings were then made to the deities - of puffed rice and ghee, before the final step in the Hindu ceremony, the couple promising each other eternal friendship. As they walked around the fire together, now united in love and in the eyes of the Gods, we had also commenced our love affair - with a crazy, confused and intoxicating culture. As we trailed off, three hours later, in search of more appetising deep-fried food snacks, I ruminated the truth of another observation of Forsters: ´many adventures happen in India, but never punctually´.

Mehndi>/b>
The colourful henna mehndi daubings which adorn the hands of a bride-to-be are symbolic as well as cosmetic. Brought to India by the mugals in 12 AD, mehndi application is an art and the most sought-after mehndi artists charge in excess of 1,500 US dollars per wedding, in addition to extravagant gifts of sarees. Varying in shade from orange and reddish brown to black, mehndi paintings last for up to two weeks and the depth of colour is considered, by some Hindus, to be indicative of the bride´s strength of feeling for her future husband.

Turbans>/b>
The achkans and jodhpurs of the barat wedding-goers are worn with colourful safas or turbans, the decoration and shade representing their province and distinguishing them from the men of the bride´s side, who wear the traditional turban of her province. Over ten metres long when unfurled, the placing of a turban is a specialist skill.

Mehndi>/b>
Flowers have always played a very important part in Indian weddings. A lasting tradition passed along from generation to generation is that of the brother of the groom sprinkling flower petals over the heads of the couple following the wedding vows and at the end of the ceremony.