India!

I finally made it to India. I arrived in Bangalore after hangin' out with Vivek's cousin in Singapore. Vivek, German Sidekick girl, and I met in the airport. I was very excited to be in India, it was a little too much for me to take in at once, I wanted to buy all the food-regardless of price. I love Indian food. Getting ready for the wedding was great. I was asked if I would be wearing traditional Kerala (the state where I was) dress, and I was more than honored to say of course!

We arrived at the wedding rather early and I was starving, so it was very nice to see a huge mess hall lined with waiters and a huge setup of food. We all took our seats and I started to realize many people were staring. It was ok with me, I showed off my Indian food eating skills (thanks Vivek) and all was fine. I pretty much just copied the guy next to me. The food was served on a Banana leaf and it was all vegetarian curries and pickles. The wedding itself was rather short, 10 minutes, and afterwards everyone rushed out. To be fair I believe people had to go to work because it was a daytime wedding in the middle of the work week. I did find it very interesting the amount of paparazzi involved. There was no less that 10 people taking pictures and maybe 3-4 guys taking video I think. They were everywhere! I was very honored to be invited and be a guest in the home of Veena & Vivek and I wish Veena a wonderful new life!

This was a bit of a shock, the wedding was arranged. So I am not sure of the details but I believe that both families found each other and they had the horoscopes read of the 2 individuals. Once this matched there was a series of meetings between the couple and the family and 3-4 months later there was a wedding. I say shocked because this is obviously not the way of the west and I was surprised to see such a traditional wedding happen.