Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 2891B/$96
We woke up this morning around 7:30am to get ready for the wedding ceremony. I went down for breakfast while Patty stayed in the room getting ready. She wanted me to say she straightened her hair with her $4 straightener and it actually worked! Apparently she was quite pleased to see her hair straight again after months of frizziness. She also used her fake MAC makeup, which is apparently of impressive quality. She was surprised...we're just waiting for her face to turn blue.
Surprise, surprise, by the time 9am rolled around, which is the time Mala told us to get to the Gurdwara (Sikh Temple), we were just finished getting ready. Unfortunately, it turned out that the kurta I had bought for myself for this very day had been tailored poorly in Kolkata, and I had been too sick to try it on. The sleeves had been made ridiculously short. It doesn't even make sense how short they made them. I was pretty annoyed. It's not like we spent a great deal of money on it, but it did look really good and we had bought it for this very occasion!!
The first few cabs we approached were asking an insane amount of money to drive us to the Gurdwara. One really annoying thing about staying in the touristy part of town is that taxi drivers won't turn on their meters and ask for crazily inflated prices. The first guy we talked to was asking for 300B, but he didn't even know where the Gurdwara was, so we had no interest in hiring him. Finally, we found a pretty nice guy who actually knew where the Gurdwara was and he offered to take us there for 200B. We were in such a rush we didn't even barter with him...we just jumped in.
About 15 minutes later we arrived at the Gurdwara terrified of walking in late...again! When we walked in Patty realized she had forgotten her dupatta (matching lengha scarf). Everyone needs to cover their heads inside the Gurdwara and women usually use their dupattas for this. Luckily a guy passed Patty a nice pink chiffon scarf to use instead of the orange handkerchief I used. The pink scarf definitely went much nicer with her lengha than an orange bandana would have! Turned out we ended up having to wear these most of the day...so that worked out.
We were directed upstairs to the 3rd floor. When we walked out of the elevator we saw nobody, until we peaked inside the windows of a big room and saw Mala and his mom, with Robin and his parents. We were worried we had missed the whole ceremony. Turned out we were one of the first people there! We had to laugh when Mala told us he tells everybody to be places hours earlier than they need to be so that they're on time. This was definitely the right strategy to use on us! Even at 10:30am people were still just arriving. Mala said that basically in India they have to lie to people about what time functions will begin. Patty remarked that she really feels that she must have been Indian in a past life.
We felt a bit awkward being the first ones there, but Mala is such a good host and he made us feel welcome. There was a breakfast buffet sitting out so we had a few things and as we ate more and more people arrived. They had potato pakoras, which is a fried Indian appetizer. It was delicious. All the food at this wedding so far has been very good. We've been really lucky!
During breakfast we mainly stood around with Mala, Pummy, and Mrs. Kamboz. We said hello to the few people we met at the reception, but aside from that we sat to the side just watching it all. We got our picture taken with the groom, Robin, again. It was kind of awkward when Patty handed him our gift (maybe it was not an appropriate time to do it?), but Robin's mom made us feel better because she was extremely appreciative of our gift.
Near noon, the wedding ceremony began and Patty sat with the women and I sat on the other side of the room with the men. I don't think either of us are very comfortable sitting on the floor, especially since most people sit cross legged. But Patty couldn't even cross her legs with her lengha on so she had to sit with her legs to the side, leaning on one hand. This apparently got very uncomfortable so she frequently alternated between positions. I don't have much to complain about, but sitting cross legged is not really my thing, even without wearing a dress!
The wedding ceremony was similar to the one we saw in Delhi. The groom waited in front of the shrine holding the Sikh holy book, while the bride walked down the aisle toward him with her entourage of female family members. Then, the couple walked around the holy Sikh book four times, with the groom leading the bride. This is essentially equivalent to the Western tradition of saying wedding vows. The Gurdwara itself was beautiful. There were Persian rugs where the people sit, huge crystal chandeliers hanging the entire length of the room on both sides, and windows letting in sun light on both sides of the room as well.
The ceremony was about 45 minutes long. When it was almost done a lady walked up to Patty and told her she looked pretty, but that she shouldn't be sitting with her feet toward the alter where the holy book sits. She apologized and was slightly embarrassed, but said the lady had been very nice about it.
Men came around with bowls of the sweet substance they feed you at the end of ceremony. It's similar to taking communion. They pass it to you with their hands and you eat with your hands. It tastes really good, but naturally for Westerners we have questions about sanitation. Especially considering our hands were touching the rugs...
When Patty had finished the first piece, another guy came by her with more. She tried to politely explain she had had some already, but he stood there a moment and said have some more. They both laughed and she plopped another blob of the stuff in her mouth. I was watching the whole thing with Mala on the other side of the room. It was pretty funny.
Once the ceremony had ended the bride and groom walked down the aisle with the photographers and guests snapping pictures of them left and right. They made quite the stunning couple. Indian outfits are really quite beautiful.
At this point, we went back down to the third floor where we had eaten breakfast and people began taking pictures with the bride and groom. Mrs. Kamboz eventually pushed us into taking a picture with them, and that was kind of awkward. We still hadn't really communicated much with either of them, so we can't imagine what they were thinking when we got our pictures with them!
After the pictures, we went downstairs to have some lunch. We couldn't believe how elaborate everything was. There was both Thai and Indian food, and it was all delicious. I dumped a huge pile of what looked like chicken stir-fry on my plate, only to realize halfway through that it wasn't chicken at all: it was tofu! I have never eaten tofu that had such a meaty flavor and texture. It was excellent.
We sat with Mala, Pummy, and Mrs. Kamboz while we ate and chatted with them. I was unfortunately very tired and didn't have too much to add to any conversations. We had had such a late night and such an early morning...I think we were both feeling a little out of sorts, though I was feeling it more than Patty.
Mrs. Kamboz told everyone at the table that Patty had learned a few phrases in Hindi and she made her say some of the ones she knew. When she said them out loud everybody laughed. We laughed too assuming they were mocking her pronunciation, but they actually said they were surprised to see a white person speak Hindi so well... so that was nice! Patty then taught Mala and some of his friends how to say “what’s your name” in Spanish. We all had some laughs about that.
They also told us about the various languages in India and the middle east and which ones were similar. It was an interesting conversation.
When lunch was over and we began walking out, the bride said "hello" to us and began asking about our trip. Turns out she is a real sweetheart and was actually appreciative of us coming to the functions! I think this really made us feel, for the first time, like we were part of the wedding. It was a nice feeling.
We took the elevator to the ground floor and said our goodbyes. Mala told us he'd get in touch with us about the cruise tomorrow and we left it at that.
We hopped into a taxi and got home for a much better rate than we'd come. I think we paid about 100B, which average out our previous ride to something a little more reasonable.
We got dropped off just outside MBK mall and we began walking back to our hotel. On the overpass (the way to cross the road and access the Skytrain), we realized that we hadn't taken any pictures of just us! We asked two different people to take pictures of us from two different locations on the overpass. It would have been really sad if we hadn't gotten any pictures of us together with Patty in her lengha, so we're both glad we did that.
Back at our hotel, we changed into more comfortable clothes and then made our way to MBK to have dinner. I'm somewhat surprised we were hungry after all the food we had eaten, but we were! We had a quick and delicious bite in the food court before going to look for something for me to wear to the cruise tomorrow night. We had been told that it was going to be casual, so that's the kind of clothing we were looking for. I found some nice shorts on the same level as the food court for about $8. They are navy blue and quite fitted. We thought those would be appropriate for a boat.
We then went looking around for Patty, but didn't have much luck. She found a makeup brush for her eyebrows, but that was it.
We then made our way back to our hotel. We were tired and hoping to do a little blogging. Blogging about India has been a grueling experience. There is so much to talk about and so many little details are very important to us. It has been mentally exhausting!
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