Wedding Trip to India 2017, Part 5

Regular readers of our now quite irregularly appearing blog will may remember we took a trip to India in December of 2015 and wrote an epic 19 part series of blog posts about it - this is not that trip. This is another trip, also to India, but this time mostly for a wedding instead of tourism. This is also Part 5, so you may wish to scroll down to Parts 1-4 if you haven't already read them.

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 5 Event 1: Visit to the Kandi 'Farmhouse' and Temple

When we got to this item on the wedding events schedule we really didn't know what to expect. We knew we were going to the 'family farmhouse' and that there would be some praying and ceremonies, but couldn't really envision what that meant. A bus picked us up at the Secunderabad Club and drove more than an hour into the countryside, winding onto smaller and smaller roads and through smaller and eventually very small towns indeed. However, when we arrived, we found that 'farmhouse' undersold the family housing and temple complex by a substantial margin. It turned out that while it may have been a farmhouse at some point, the family had been on an upward trend for generations and had converted most of the original farm into structures and gardens, with a few mango trees and the like retained as a flavor of the past. Apparently a lot of the housing in it is 'rented' just for contributing labor to keeping the place up and is a benefit to low-income folks in the area.

This is not the complex - this is the integrated temple built by the family at the corner of the complex

The first event after arriving was prayers at the family temple, which went on through several stages for an hour or so. Again, most of the prayers and chants are in Sanskrit and even the participants often only have limited ideas about exactly what's going on, and we had even less as we'd get clued in by family members standing nearby from time to time. Some local priests handled much of it and a much higher level priest stopped in for some key bits. The temple is dedicated to a few sort of standard deities and also the family's chosen or patron deity (of education - I believe selected in response to the opportunities and success that education had brought the family - a choice we heartily support). 

I didn't keep track of which deity was which, but this may the family god, patron of education. The local priests were said to be eagerly anticipating a branch of the India Institute of Technology opening just down the road, as students would be likely to seek out a temple dedicated to education and sharply improve attendance and donations around the finals. We could see the massive building under construction to house that branch of the university.

The gentleman in the red garment and the gentleman holding the flaming oil oversaw most of the operations

The gentleman with the orange hat in the chair was the high priest and oversaw some apparently critical passages in the prayers for the marriage and family.

After finishing the course of prayers at the temple, we walked across some of the gardens and relocated to the main hall of the central structure of the complex to get some serious praying done. The building could probably have sat 200 people and featured the first literal rolled out red carpet that I may ever have walked upon.

As evidence - here I am standing upon that red carpet outside the main building

Up at the front of the room a smaller shrine had been set up, and they got to work. We were given a cheat sheet discussing the kinds of prayers going on, which was very thoughtful.

After a total of about 4 hours of ceremonies and prayers, it was time for lunch. Lunch was served in a tent outside, with all the serving being done by members of the family, most of whom seemed to be primarily concerned with making sure you ate enough of whatever it was that they were serving. The food was simple and outstanding - or at least the things I tried were - too many to take much of anything in particular. I enjoyed trying the various spicy 'pickles' which are pickled sauces used to liven up other dishes - super pungent and powerful and I admit to eating some of them without bothering to put them on something else. At this point in the trip we knew all the foreigners and numerous members of the family, so it was nice just to eat together and have conversations.

Lunch tent - with the shade the temperature was perfect

I think the bride and groom got a tiny bit of time to their actual selves during lunch

Lunch buffet line, manned principally by cousins of the groom I think

After lunch, there was discussion of a tour of the local area but that never seemed to get off the ground and eventually we all boarded the bus back to the hotel. I think I slept through most of the trip back, which I suspect was not an uncommon choice.

Day 5 Event 2: "Cocktail Dinner"

It should be noted that most of the events in this wedding and reception sequence were both dry (no booze) and vegetarian. That didn't stop them from being complex and delicious meals, and with so many interesting people to talk to we didn't much miss the alcohol either. However, one event was set aside to focus on meat and alcohol, and that was the "cocktail dinner" the evening after the farmhouse trip. To get there we boarded another (smaller) bus from the Secunderabad Club and were driven into the city, where we went to the rooftop patio of a hotel which looked out over some major thoroughfares of the city from a substantial height. This patio had a well-stocked open bar which was compromised somewhat by the fact that the bartender was probably a bellhop by day and was unfamiliar with concepts like 'gin and tonic' so it was best to either stick to things you'd drink neat or request each component of your drink separately and then mix them yourself. We felt this was pretty funny and shared tips with the other foreigners. Fried and grilled appetizers started going around, including chicken tikka, 'chili potato' (sort of like General Tso's chicken if it was potato instead of chicken and had more sriracha in the sauce), 'chili fish' (same deal but fish instead of potato), and a few other things. They were universally delicious and we were hungry so people would eat everything at one table and then go find another table to steal from until more plates came out - good for mingling. I ate a very large quantity of all of the above and enjoyed all of it immensely. 

One of very few pictures of the venue taken that night

Parts of an Indian wedding can be a bit political - a way to show off who you can get at your party and mingle with important people. This event had fairly restrictive attendance and the father of the groom went around introducing some of the more important people who'd come. It sounded like they had the equivalent of a US state governor (or maybe a lieutenant governor) and the city district attorney or equivalent among the guests. Not sure why they'd want to meet us, but as long as the appetizers kept coming I wasn't going to complain about it.

The rooftop had statues of deities made out of scrap around the outside edges of the patio

After a good hour or so of appetizers and cocktails, the dinner buffet was served inside the hotel - I checked it out but quickly determined the appetizers remained the most delicious items available and kept my focus there as the evening continued. I believe at some point they turned on music and had a dance floor inside but the conversation and air outside was more attractive and I don't think many people went inside.

When the event downtown wrapped up, it became apparent that the remaining contents of the bar were up for grabs by guests and the foreigners made off with about a case of liquor of several kinds and continued the party back at the Secunderabad Club deep into the night. We'll pick up the next morning when we work a little tourism into the back half of the trip.

Wedding Trip to India 2017, Part 4

Regular readers of our now quite irregularly appearing blog will may remember we took a trip to India in December of 2015 and wrote an epic 19 part series of blog posts about it - this is not that trip. This is another trip, also to India, but this time mostly for a wedding instead of tourism. This is also Part 4, so you may wish to scroll down to Parts 1-3 if you haven't already read them.

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 4 Event 1: Transit to Hyderabad

As noted in the previous entry, the wedding was now complete but the reception had yet to begin. The wedding was in Delhi, near the bride's family, and the reception was in Hyderabad, near the groom's, so the day after the wedding we needed to change cities. Google Maps claims this is a 26 hour car ride or 2 hours by plane; we flew. We were on the same flight as a substantial part of the groom's family and a few other friends, so we carpooled with them from the hotel to the airport and did most of the travel together. We spent a fair bit of time hanging out with the groom's younger brother and a friend of his Australia, which enlivened the whole trip.

We flew on the domestic IndiGo airline, which was a little different than most other flights we've taken around the world - for one thing, if you weren't seated in the front half of the plane, you actually went out on the jetway and entered through the rear door of the aircraft. In theory, this makes a lot of sense for quickly filling and emptying a plane of passengers, but too many people who had seats in the back still entered from the front - so now there was traffic attempting to go both directions down the main aisle of the plane, which neatly negated all benefits and probably made things worse. I think if they want that method to work it will need to be enforced at the gate. Second, the attitude and conduct of the flight attendants seemed a bit like time travel with how seriously and glamorously the enterprise of passenger jet flight was being held to be - they were very disciplined in uniform and in giving the safety presentation, though it was also obvious that age, gender, and appearance discrimination had been used in selecting the flight attendants - this may also have contributed to the sense of traveling back in time to a different age of flight.

On other interesting wrinkle was from the security screening in Delhi had all the women scanned for contraband in a private little cabin-box-thing instead of out in the open. Since there were about two screeners for women and about six for men, there was a substantially longer wait for women to be screened.

Day 4 Event 2: Hyderabad Arrival and Secunderabad Club

Arriving in Hyderabad, the traveling party needed to split up as most of the immediate family members of the groom were going to the 'farmhouse' (we'll get to that in a later entry) and the friends of the family, including us, were going to the Secunderabad Club. The family (mostly the groom's younger brother) had arranged for family and hired cars to regularly come to the airport during the day and to pick various expected guests up, but we were in the first wave and it appeared that the system may not have been up and running as expected - one car quickly came to take the family to the 'farmhouse' but the car for us was delayed or missing in action, probably due to traffic. We waited in the outdoor pickup area outside the airport, which was fine because the temperature was quite pleasant and we were still with friends. When a car finally came, getting all the luggage for several international travelers into it was a challenge, but we managed it and then piled in ourselves. The trip from the airport to the club is nominally less than an hour, but traffic was a major ongoing issue for the entire drive. With most roads in India not being super smooth, and the jerky stop-and-GO-GO-GO nature of most of the driving, we were starting to get carsick by the time we arrived, though also hungry because we were getting substantially into the evening.

The Secunderabad Club was an interesting choice for hosting all the foreign guests of the wedding instead of another hotel. The club is a walled compound in the city and was founded by the British in the 19th century. It is members-only and highly exclusive, with a multi-year waiting list. Based on what we saw, I believe it took a coordinated effort of multiple members of the club in and related to the groom's family to get all of us into the guest rooms there. My feeling is that it reflected on the prestige of the family to be able to host so many people there at once, and that it was seen as more fun and different for the foreign guests since it had a lot of athletic facilities and conveniences (like a store) on the grounds. You're not supposed to take pictures inside, but we took a few before we realized that - beyond our few, their website gives a reasonably good idea of the place.

Guest arrival and departure desk and lounge

The guest quarters are a series of buildings with common areas in the middle and guest rooms all around the outside - sort of a complex rather than a single building

Near the rooms was an outdoor breakfast patio - you could get the buffet or have the cooks make an omelet, dhosas, or some toast, but the lead time varied from 5 minutes to at least half an hour for no apparent reason

Ana was much taken with their actual boabob tree as apparently Disney's Animal Kingdom has a fake one and she's always wanted to see a real one

The overall club has a bit of a feeling of faded glory, where everyone is taking the place and the rules of it really seriously, but it isn't quite kept up to the level that would merit it. The hot water supply took several minutes to get going (though it was HOT when it came), the rooms were a little run down and musty, and the bars and restaurants weren't exceptional. However, we were very glad to have the experience of it versus a regular hotel and the place grew on us as we figured it out.

The first night, we really just needed to find some food. In what we were reading, the outdoor dining area was less formal than the bar and we didn't feel like playing dress-up, so we went there. It turned out that the outdoor dining area was on a nice lawn, but there weren't a whole lot of lights out there so it was dark. When the waiters came around with menus they had flashlights so that the customers could read them. We ordered a few dishes and some sodas and eventually a few more foreign guests found us and ordered as well, so the dining became more convivial. Fortified by the food and the company, we changed venues from the lawn to the bar, pausing to go put on collared shirts first since that was an inescapable rule of the bar. 

The main club bar was fairly distinctive - huge high ceilings, wood paneled walls, and insignia from the British and Indian armed forced units whose officers had billeted at the Club over time (pictures). It also focused on whiskey, which was a plus for me, and we sampled a number of brands and types that are not commonly available in the US. I don't think we found any real winners (found some questionable ones) but it is hard to complain about sampling whiskey with friends old and new in an old British officer's bar in India. One interesting wrinkle is that cash is not supposed to be used to pay for things at the Club - we had been given pre-paid cards, but we had no idea how much was on them until we used each one. It turned out that you couldn't buy things with cash, but you could put cash on the card and then pay with the card, which turned the process of buying that drink from quick to extended and became a bit of a running joke for the group. We'd send one person up to buy multiple drinks, then everyone in the group would come claim their drinks and leave the one person the extended job of paying for them, and rotate around. We had a congenial evening.

The next day morning we were invited on a trip to the 'farmhouse', which was another of those 'close family only' events that all the foreign guests were included in. We'll pick up there in the next entry.

Wedding Trip to India 2017, Part 3

Regular readers of our now quite irregularly appearing blog will may remember we took a trip to India in December of 2015 and wrote an epic 19 part series of blog posts about it - this is not that trip. This is another trip, also to India, but this time mostly for a wedding instead of tourism. This is also Part 3, so you may wish to scroll down to Parts 1 and 2 if you haven't already read it.

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 2: Turban Tying

At this point we're making solid progress through the preliminaries and to the actual wedding itself. However, we're not quite there yet. The height of fashion for men in the groom's party (and the groom himself) is to wear a turban for entrance to the wedding and the wedding itself. The family, knowing a whole bunch of men were going to need turbans and that this is perhaps not an everyday item, hired a turban tying guy to bring over some turbans and apply them to us, which was a novel experience.

I think the key thing to know about wearing a turban, at least using these materials and applied by this particular guy, is that it is very uncomfortable, mostly by being extremely tight. I am reasonably confident the goal is to make sure the turban doesn't come undone during the wedding, but from the minute the job was done there was definitely a part of my brain ready to take it off. However, we all needed to be wearing them so we sucked it up and agreed basically to wait for the bus back to remove them. Perhaps this could be thought of as an experience for building empathy for other seemingly painful fashions in history such as the corset and high heeled shoes. The turban guy was also really insistent about trying to get tips even though he'd been paid not to ask for them by the family - once a family member cottoned on to that they told off the turban dude for trying to get paid twice.

Apparently we looked good to onlookers. I thought the turban material could not have been calculated to clash harder with what I was wearing. Fortunately, a whole bunch of clashing bright colors is not nearly as much a problem in India - I think it communicates that you're getting into the spirit of things.

Day 3 Event 3: Entrance to the Wedding

Not content to merely have an impressive entrance for the bride, both sides of the aisle have major entrances in India - or at least, in the parts the bride and/or groom are from. In this case, the bride's family was waiting at the venue, the groom's family and groom made a big show of getting there and greeting them, they all made nice and hung out for a bit, then the bride had her own separate entrance. At any rate, the entrance is a big deal and it is understood that you should make as much noise as possible to show you're serious about the whole thing.

Nik's brother briefing us on the bus - we know him from college and he's actually Lee's little in the fraternity Lee was in with Nik

The groom's side bused from the hotel to the venue together along with at least some of our hired noise - a really big wedding will use an elephant (or at least a horse) for the groom to enter on along with a whole big band, but Nik had put his foot down for less pomp and so he walked in and we only had a couple of drummers and a piper guy. You're still supposed to dance and yell like crazy, so we did that part, with Nik's brother leading the way and dancing like crazy.

Getting warmed up for the procession - these surly looking drummers would stand next to you and drum really loud until you tipped them. Note the two gentlemen in the center with flowers on them - the one on the left is the groom and the one on the right is a younger cousin of the bride. The cousin's job is to make sure the groom doesn't try to skip out on the wedding. There are some ceremonies where the groom has to pretend he's not serious and he's going to bail, and the cousin has to speak up about the bride's virtues and offer sort of bribes for the groom to stay and go through with it. At one point the groom has to threaten to go join the priesthood instead of getting married and the cousin has to convince him otherwise.

Making a ruckus going from the bus to the venue

Arriving at the actual venue - flowers were AMAZING at all events and places - those are all fresh marigolds in the orange stripes there, and that canopy is probably 25 feet deep.

The bride got her own noisy arrival - her party is smaller because a lot of them have to be at the venue already to meet the groom's troop. Also that guy with the little silver horn can create some really piercing sounds.

Day 3 Event 4: They Actually Get Married at some point while we're all eating appetizers

Once both parties are actually at the venue, the wedding goes on for hours. At some point in there they get officially married, but that doesn't end the ceremony - it's just a point in the middle and there is a lot more to go. So the good part is, nobody expects the guests to actually attempt to pay attention to the whole thing - you basically go get some appetizers, talk to people, and every now and then go and check in on the wedding ceremony itself. All the bride's-side-hosted events (including this one) were vegetarian-only but there were still dozens of interesting things to eat while the wedding went on.

For the first set of ceremonies, bride and groom were up on a stage to one side. Preliminaries went on for a while and then they put garlands on each other.

There were also a lot of pictures taken on this stage with friends and family

After the shorter part on the stage they moved to a centrally located set of seats with a priest so folks involved weren't standing for hours.

The crowd would circulate as folks came to check in on what was happening as the prayers and ceremonies continued into the evening.

Flowers hanging down from the wedding pavilion

Meanwhile...

The venue was outdoors, extensive, and amazingly decorated with flowers

I had one mint mocktail (this is a no-booze event) then a really spicy appetizer. I went for another mint mocktail and accidentally got one that was filled with hot peppers in addition to the mint. This did not improve the situation.

Banquet had about three times as many options as you could possibly try

At one point in there, after the ceremonies were over but before the event itself ended, the bride and groom sort of become available to meet with people, but after hours and days of lead-up and prep they're pretty exhausted. All the foreigners (and some international family members) got together in a big group to basically stand shoulder to shoulder and keep other people away to buy the couple a few minutes' peace. I think someone went out and brought back food and some bottled water and so on and we just made space for them to cram some food in and get a breather. So in that respect you can say we contributed to the goings-on. After a few minutes determined groups of well-wishers started breaching our lines and the bride and groom had to wade back into the fray.

Finally, after a lot of eating and talking and watching ongoing praying and chanting and various other things (and probably most of the guests left at some point in here, but obviously we're in the for whole thing) the last big event of the evening is sending the new couple off. The piper got going with some fairly piercing tunes everyone remaining got together for a few final (for this day) ceremonies to send them off.

And you might think this wedding thing is just about over, but you'd be so, so wrong. The reception is also days long and actually takes place far enough away that we had to get on a plane to get there. We'll pick up on the way to Hyderabad for the second half of the trip.

Wedding Trip to India 2017, Part 2

Regular readers of our now quite irregularly appearing blog will may remember we took a trip to India in December of 2015 and wrote an epic 19 part series of blog posts about it - this is not that trip. This is another trip, also to India, but this time mostly for a wedding instead of tourism. This is also Part 2, so you may wish to scroll down to Part 1 if you haven't already read it.

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.

Wedding Trip to India 2017, Part 1

Regular readers of our now quite irregularly appearing blog will may remember we took a trip to India in December of 2015 and wrote an epic 19 part series of blog posts about it - this is not that trip. This is another trip, also to India, but this time mostly for a wedding instead of tourism.

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.

The wedding was of good friends of ours, one of whom Lee was close with and had adventures with in college, and who also worked on a term project team whose other members were us. He was also notable for 'interviewing' Ana for the position of dating Lee (mostly for his own edification I think, I didn't ask him and we were already dating) and being a bit surprised that a feature-function matrix had under-girded her decision making there. The bride-to-be we'd met more recently but she's also a smashing human being and we're very happy for them both.

Day 0:
This being in India and an Indian wedding, the travel and festivities were not a short affair, but the wedding took place juuuust between the end of courses for the semester and final grades being due, so we were lucky to be able to fly out and attend. For the flight out we only had two legs, one to Heathrow (one of Raleigh's 2 international flights per day!) and then on to Delhi. We ran into another friend from college waiting for the flight to Delhi, so the meeting up and hanging out began before we even got to India.

And of course like the nerds / engineering faculty that we are, we took pictures in the airport of this complex truss being all 'hey that's a real-life example of a 3D statics problem'

Day 1:

Learning from the overfull travel and tourism plans of the previous trip, we had given ourselves a much lighter schedule and the first day we had scheduled...absolutely nothing. The hotel was a step up from most of the places we'd stayed on the previous trip and it being the end of the semester for us and having spent ~30 hours in transit, we just spent the day recovering. In the evening we went out for dinner with most of the other not-from-India / foreign friends coming in for the wedding. The hotel and wedding venue were selected for being very close to where the bride's family lived and therefore we got an outstanding restaurant recommendation (restaurant was called Mahabelly, if you're in the area). 

It also turns out that the friends close enough to the couple to fly halfway around the world to be at their wedding were all fun and interesting people. The bride and groom were usually busy with, you know, getting married, so it was great to have all these other people (some we already knew, many new faces) to go through the experience with.

All this was a much better idea than going out and touring, especially since we'd seen most of the big sites of Delhi the last time we were in town. We were also very glad to discover that the horrendous air quality we were anticipating based on the news had largely passed - we checked and air quality, while not good, was at something like a 2 year best, and it was actually better than the last time we were in Delhi in our opinion. On the other hand, there was a large group of dogs outside the hotel having loud discussions with each other at night, but earplugs substantially mitigated this concern.

Day 2:

Coming into the sequence of wedding events, we'd been given a schedule, and we quickly learned two things about it: 1) count on starting later than the scheduled time and 2) if something is marked 'close family only' then all the foreigners are welcome, so we went to pretty much everything. The next day was an event for the bride's side that was supposed to be only for women, but instructions on the scene said dudes might as well show up too. This event was called a mehendi and it boils down to a party where the bride gets her henna done. It was in the morning, within walking distance of our hotel on the roof of another hotel, and there was a certain amount of snacks, music, and dancing but mostly it was hanging out while the work got done. Most of the pictures below were taken by our new friend Liz.

Venue - rooftop done up for a party

Bride to be before starting

They applied henna on her for ~3 hours, had to move that couch with her on it to keep her out of the sun

Final product was both hands and arms to the elbow and feet and legs to the knee

To get good color on the henna you can't move and smear it so they had snacks to keep people busy while it dried. Also, the longer you leave it on the darker it is, and the darker it is the more the groom is supposed to love the bride. So you leave it on for as long as possible.

Some friends and family did some dances to entertain the bride, more or less selected and run by her childhood friends

After a semester of teaching, it was lovely to not be the center of any kind of attention and not have anyone requiring me to do anything. The singer that came in was peeved that not everyone was participating in some dances, but doing mostly nothing was absolutely my speed at that time.

As the bride's henna was finished, smaller applications were available for any others that wanted it - Ana had some done and then had to hold her hands out for an hour or so while it dried. 

After the mehendi, we had a few hours before dinner and very productively napped. 

Dinner was held at the local family temple (again walking distance to the hotel), and it was a big buffet-style affair. We were there mostly on-time, which is to say, early, so we got to make an early run through the buffet line and get a table nice and close to it. These pictures are also from Liz, who took a lot of pictures and then organized them really well so it is easy to find ones from different events. Thanks, Liz!

This is maybe 2/3rds of the line - way too many things to be able to try them all

All the bride's-side-hosted events were vegetarian, but since it is Indian food for Indian people (not the sort of sad wan stuff many tourist-focused places in India serve, you could generally do pretty well if you chose your courses wisely.

Ana caved to the pressure of a family member carrying around 'pan', which to my understanding is mostly green (uncured) tobacco with a few other things in it masquerading as a digestif. I warned her (I'd been tricked by this the last time in India) but she ate it anyway and kept it down without looking like she was suffering too much. 

I'm going to end the first installment here, since the next day was the actual wedding, after several additional preliminary events.

New State, New Land

Yes, yes...this is a fertile land and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land and we will call it...

This Land.

Link here for those who do not get the reference - if you have not seen Firefly/Serenity, we highly recommend the show!

Right now, it is just land. In the future, there will also be a house on the land. We are working with an architect. Initial rendering below.

In the meantime, it is remaining as farmland and will be rented to actual farmers for at least the next year.