A Gujarati Wedding

Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted anything. I’ve been teaching four classes a day, conducting a study on why the students here at the vocational training center dropped out of their schools, and editing a book all at the same time, six days a week. But the last batch of students just ended, so I’ve had some free time. I spent two days at one of the three primary schools (the last one I hadn’t visited) run by my NGO, teaching English songs and having fun with the kids. Then I went around Gujarat for two days to see some historical sites. Civilization has existed in Gujarat for around 5,000 years, so there are lots of old temples and ruins. It was a nice chance for me to relax and be a tourist for a little while, and gave me an opportunity to see some of India’s history.

What might be more interesting for you, though, is if I write a bit about the marriage I attended last week. The groom, Raju, is a coworker, and works as the furniture course instructor here. For the occasion, all of the vocational training center staff crammed into two or three cars, and drove two hours to Raju’s village, somewhere in the middle of rural Gujarat.

The sun was already going down by the time we pulled onto a narrow dirt road off of a main highway, and parked the cars next to a wedding tent set up outside Raju’s home. A couple dozen relatives were lulling around, the women in their finest saris, the young men in slacks and shirts, and the old men in kurtas (a loose, long shirt) and lungis (a white wrap thing, part pants, part skirt, and part loin cloth). It didn’t take long for anyone who could speak 10 words of English to find me, shake my hand and ask me “where you coming from?”

Raju soon came out of his house (one-story, concrete, maybe three rooms), bedecked in a turban, a sparkly wedding kurta, pointy shoes, and carrying a faux-golden dagger. His skin looked a sickly yellow-green because his female relatives had been bathing him in turmeric, which is apparently considered auspicious. Raju, who typically leaves his shirts un-tucked and is pretty laid-back, looked somewhat uncomfortable covered from head to toe in formality and wedding tradition. I exchanged a few words with him, but soon the procession started.

This was not a wedding procession in any way that you might imagine. It was led by a pushcart on which rested a cheap electric keyboard and the car battery used to power it, along with three megaphones set on the top. A few teenagers pushed the cart while the local “talent” yelled into a microphone and pounded on the keyboard. It might have seemed more musical if it hadn’t been forced through the megaphones, which distorted whatever chance the sound had of coming through cleanly; imagine it all coming through the loudspeakers of any train station. Leading the cart were two or three men with drums, banging away and keeping the beat to which everyone danced their way through the village. At one point, the cart and drummers stopped and played in once place, allowing a garba dance circle to form. To the delight of all, I joined in, my garba skills coming back to me from the Navratri celebration a few months earlier.

Raju marched alongside some older male relatives, a coconut in one hand and the fake gold dagger in another. The coconut, I’ve learned, is a symbol of purity. The procession marched on. At a few houses, some old ladies gave Raju a coin, threw some rice on his hair, put a dot of red powder on his forehead, and then moved their hands from his head to theirs, as if forcing something from his mind into their own. I learned later that this symbolizes their desire to take all the bad luck away from the groom and to bring it on them instead.

After the music, everyone returned to Raju’s house for dinner. There were vegetables, rice, lentils, and about five different varieties of sweets. As is typical with all Indian sweets, they were basically pure sugar, thinly disguised with food coloring. After dinner and a short break, the garba dancing continued anew, this time under the tent outside Raju’s home. I danced with everyone until about 1 in the morning, and then went to bed at a neighbor’s house.

The next morning was when the real action started. I was surprised that the bride or her family hadn’t even made an appearance at Raju’s house, but this is all part of the tradition. After one last march through the village, everyone boarded a bus to the bride’s village, about 30 kilometers away. Once there, everyone seemed kind of lost. I drank tea at a random person’s home and sat around until someone started playing a drum. I got up, and saw that it was a kid of about 11 or 12 years old playing drums with his father. Some relative of either Raju’s or the bride’s told me that they were “doing their traditional duty” as Valmikis. Valmikis are considered the lowest caste in India’s caste system, and are usually relegated to the most menial and degrading of tasks, like dragging away dead animals or cleaning excreta. Strangely, they are also assigned the duty of playing drums, apparently because drums are usually made of animal skin, and making them is/was considered an unclean task. This boy and his dad, though, were playing store-bought drums that were not made of animal skin; regardless, the “traditional duty” remained.

In any case, to the beat of the drums, the bride’s sister came out of her house, surrounded by female relatives, and carrying a coconut covered in beads on her head. Team Bride confronted Team Groom, and the bride’s sister put some red powder on Raju’s forehead. Raju was now wearing a different turban and carrying a fake gold sword in place of the fake gold dagger, all of which stood in contrast to his 1970’s style suit and loafers. The priest, dressed all in white, said some prayers. All the while, the bride’s female relatives sang songs ridiculing the groom, which is my favorite of the Gujarati wedding traditions. The random relative who spoke English translated some of them for me. In one line of the song, the women said Raju was short and ugly. In another, they asked if all the people standing around him were blind. And then in my favorite, they called everyone who came with him monkeys.

Despite the ridicule, Raju and his entourage were granted permission to approach the bride’s house. At the doorstep, the bride’s mother gave Raju some more red powder on the forehead, and then Raju sat down on one of two purple plush chairs waiting on the porch. Because of my status as an outsider with much-revered white skin (I really hate that Indian people value white skin so much, and it bothers me that if an American with darker skin were in my place they probably would not be treated as well), I was able to get up on the porch and watch the whole ceremony, and take lots of photos. For the first half an hour or so, Raju just sat on the plush chair looking bored while the priest drew designs on the floor with white and orange powder. Eventually, the bride came out, wearing a beautiful red and gold sari, her hands and arms covered in henna, her face and hair elaborately made up. No words or even glances were exchanged between her and Raju, despite the fact that she sat down on the second purple plush chair directly next to him.

The priest continued his chanting, setting out some copper pots around his powder design, and then putting a coconut in the middle of it. Then Raju and the bride stood up and marched around the coconut a few times. Someone guided her hand onto his, and some money was placed on it. Her sari was then tied to his scarf, the coconut was dipped in oil and lit, and once again they marched around the coconut, now flaming.

When the ceremony was over, the old men got together over a pot of crumpled bills, apparently collecting donations from the community to cover the cost of the ceremony and the forthcoming meal. Lunch was good, and was similar to dinner the previous night.

So that was the first Indian wedding I’ve seen. I’m thinking of introducing a flaming coconut into my own wedding, whenever that happens, but I haven’t yet decided about the turban or dagger.