Monsoon Wedding Part 2: What Really Happened…

Despite the traffic jam, the only event described throughout Monsoon Wedding (previous post), Samir Christopher and Glare tied the knot on September 3rd.  The traffic and rain stopped some guests from making it while others made it in no time or so they thought only because…

gaby snoozing yet again

It was a catholic wedding that started with the white dress, dad walking gorgeous bride down the aisle,  handsome prince awaiting, choir singing, but it was none like I’ve ever been to before,  swarmed with sarees and kurtas and so many indians.

gorgeous couple

At the reception, the bride changed into a royal red saree. She was basically taken backstage where the ladies dolled her up, ornamented her with  jewellery  and flowered up her hair with jasmin.  All of the ladies jasminized each other’s hair too. Apparently jasminizing up the bride’s hair serves to make the groom’s first night with her a perfumed enchantment. It was an amalgamation of flowers, music, laughter, gold necklaces, bracelets, scent of a woman. 

bride flowered up

The food was great and I had my first fruits in India, papaya and pineapple. Delicious! Gaby and I had been worried about falling sick especially before the wedding so we had avoided raw foods at all costs.  It is one day post-wedding and Gaby still hasn’t eaten any raw foods, he’s such a sissy.

The wedding ended on a slightly sad note, since as tradition has it, the groom’s family grabs the bride at the end, a depiction of taking her away from her family into another one. Then sad Indian music plays and the bride is supposed to cry and they wait for her to cry and poke her to cry but Glare can’t stop smiling…The mother of the bride was in sooo much tears as the sad Indian music played (it was kind of sadistic). More sad music. More tears. Gaby’s and my laughters exponentially increased with the increase of “salty discharge” from the poor woman’s eyes.  As tradition has it, she is not supposed to talk or hold her daughter for the rest of the evening and until the next day.  I guess Gaby’s and my sadistic natures made this the highlight of our night.

The next day, we lunched with the bride, the groom and the families. But Gaby took forever to wake up, and at noon-time I had to drag him out of bed. It may seem that Gaby's body composition mixed with exposure to India is the ultimate antidote to insomnia. The scientist in me wonders about the perfect experiment to understand this phenomenon and exploit it to help people with sleep disorders.

It is now 6pm and we are at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport awaiting our flight to our next destination: Jaipur. It took us a while to realize that our flight was flying from the domestic airport  which is almost 30 min away from the international one. Our tickets clearly stated "Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport" but Samir and his cousin insisted it had to be the domestic airport and they were right! But it makes no sense not to have this specified in our tickets!! Make sure if you fly from Mumbai next time to check which terminal you are taking. Terminal 1 is part of the domestic one while terminal 2 is in the international one but both are called "Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport". Go figure. 

Gaby is getting a foot massage as we speak, only thirty minutes till take off. I hope I have enough time for some pampering too.
(5 min later). Gaby was snoozing as his feet were being massaged. No space for me for the next 10 min, and our flight takes off in 20 min so I guess I may have to wait for an Ayurvedic massage in Delhi.