As usual, the photos that we took can be found on Flickr. Some of the photos used in this blog post were taken by friends of ours or the wedding photographers and don't appear on Flickr. Those will be noted with credit when used.
Day 3 Event 1:
The first event of Day 3 was another one of those 'close family only' events that we hadn't originally expected to go to but turned out to be invited to anyway. We were directed not to dress up, and it turned out this was not just because this event was early morning. I am not positive 100% on all the symbolism, but for this one they pretty much covered the groom with turmeric paste along with some chanting and prayers (I heard something about it makes him look like the sun*) and then there was something that could be described as a cross between an application of turmeric paste to the audience and a professional wrestling match.
*All prayers and most goings on for these events are in Sanskrit, which nobody but the priests understands, so even the Hindi-speaking audience is often unclear on exactly what's up. They know the overall arc of the event put the prayers can go on for hours and basically the priest says it first and you repeat, and if you mangle it they have you repeat it. This is further complicated because it seems that most families do things a bit differently with the rituals and add and subtract components sometimes. The good thing about Indian weddings going on for days is there isn't much pressure to get every moment of it exactly perfect - you just make it happen. Another main difference is because it goes on for days, there is a lot less pressure on the audience to sit still and pay attention for every moment of it too. I feel like this is more fun for everyone.
Let's regroup. The event was in the morning in a basement meeting room of the hotel and the foreigners all arrived early because we hadn't yet figured out that the start times for events were merely there to establish when you should actually show up (20 minutes - 1 hour after the scheduled start, generally speaking).
Groom-to-be and family come in, and even though they start the ceremony the groom's dad was still taking calls and yelling at people on his phone to hurry up, they've already started. Nobody batted an eye.
I believe the application of turmeric paste was limited to ladies only, mostly aunts and cousins I think. Praying accompanies all of this.
No shortage of helpers to apply the paste.
After finishing up coating the groom is when it gets interesting. Now you have all these aunties with turmeric paste on their hands and mischief on their minds. It turns out the next step is to apply the paste to the audience. If you sit still and take it, they just dab a little on your cheek and sigh to themselves about how boring you are. The fun part is the people who resist - the aunties group up and attack. Close family members like the groom's dad or his brother made a show of resisting and got huge facefuls of the stuff, but when the aunties turned on each other was when it got really interesting. They were running around the room, through the aisles, formed teams against each other, and generally had fun with it. In one instance I saw one auntie feinting left and right trying to get past two others, and then a third came up behind the unmarked one, put both hands on her face from behind, dragged her to the ground with those hands, and then continued to rub her face on the ground. She was thoroughly turmeric'd. I don't believe I have seen such horseplay from adults in public in my entire life and it was wonderful.
They closed out with some additional group prayers - ladies only though.
After this we had several hours while preparations were being made before the next event, which is where we'll pick up.
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