India Trip Highlights

Once we landed in India, there were a lot of things I wanted to do in the first week including, most importantly, shopping :).  In the first week, my first priority was to get all my dresses for the wedding ceremonies (sangeet, wedding, and reception).  The reason I say first week is because even though the wedding was after 2 weeks, the ceremonies were going to start from a week before, starting with the "Bethak" which starts from a week before.  "Bethak" is kind of like a get-together every night where all the family members come to meet at night, chit-chat, have snacks and fun time! 

Let me start by the "Sangeet" for the wedding.  My cousin had hired a choreographer to teach all the cousins, his friends, all the aunts/uncles the dance for the actual ceremony.  You can't imagine the chaos to get everyone together for practice all at once....but believe me...it was crazy!  We didn't have all the steps done, or all the dances done until the day before the ceremony.  This leaves no time for practicing on the actual stage.  But somehow things always work out and the ceremony was fabulous.  I was supposed to get the dress for Sangeet a week before and must have gone to zillion shops, I have lost a count now, to find a dress that I like for the Sangeet ceremony, but no luck.  There were only 2 days left and I still did not have a dress.  Finally, I find the ONE dress I was looking for just 2 days before the ceremony, and hope that the blouse comes back stitched fine.  Next day, I find out that the blouse is stitched wrong with just a day to go and have to give back for stitching on the day of the sangeet.  I am going nuts but I was also relieved because my cousin was supervising the stitching and making sure we get the clothes in time.  Finally, I get everything back and sorted just 2 hours before the sangeet and start getting ready.  I will be lying if I say I wasn't worried...because I was!  If I didn't have that dress in time, I think it would have been a complete disaster.  For the dance, I was part of a medley which included songs "Main albeli" from Zubaida, "Gunji angana mein shehnai" from life partner, and "O bekhabar" from Action Replay.  I also did a dance with my 2 cousins on a rajasthani song "Ghoomar", beautiful song.  A lot of my cousin's friends danced on latest songs from golmaal 3, action replay, I hate luv stories, Aisha, etc.

We had a day break after sangeet and before the wedding.  On the wedding day, all the ladies, meaning my mom, mom's sisters, and all the other aunts had to be at the groom's place at 4:45 am in the morning for one of the rituals which is to put "Haldi (turmeric)" on my cousin brother's face :).  This is kind of hard to explain but let me give it a shot.  Basically "Haldi" ceremony is celebrated on both sides of the families in their homes where haldi paste is applied to the bride and the groom which includes turmeric, other herbs, mixed with milk.  Its been followed for ages and haldi is supposed to be good for your complexion :).  Following this ceremony was the actual wedding.  Before the wedding is taking the "Barat" to the wedding venue.  For "Barat", we all got together at my cousin's place with the band people and did tons of dancing at the front yard of the home.  Then we all drove to 1 mile before the actual wedding venue, got out of the cars, and danced our way to the wedding place.  We were from the groom's side,so we could demand whatever we want before the groom goes in.  We demanded for them to bring the bride out before my cousin goes in, and they did.  She came out and she was looking gorgeous.  The fun was unlimited.  The wedding took place for 1-2 hours and then we sat down to eat lunch with the bride and the groom.  Then comes the "Bidaai" part which is kind of sad.  "Bidaai" is basically where the bride's family is giving their daughter to the groom's family and sending her off to the groom's house.  This gets kind of emotional since everyone starts crying from the bride's family.  Controlling our emotions, we get everyone in car and then get to the groom's home where the couple of remaining rituals take place.  Finally my cousin and his newly bride gets to take a moment to breath, they need to get ready for another ceremony!  It's actually a wedding anniversary of my uncle and aunt (my cousin's parents) and they have invited the entire family for dinner, so they don't get to sit and relax.  I didn't get to sit and relax since I was with them the whole time, but freshened up, changed and got ready for the party!  The wedding was fantastic.  I just love weddings, where everyone is so happy, dancing, and the entire atmosphere is very joyful.

We get another day off before the reception takes place.  But this time, it wasn't too much of a hassle since there was no dancing or preparation involved.  We just had to get ready and get to the reception, take bunch of pictures with the newly wed couple and enjoy the magnificent menu my uncle had decided on.  I sat down to eat with my cousin and at that time they served everything from starter soup to the main course dinner.  But honestly, there were so many dishes that before the main course dinner came, I was completely full.  I told the waiter to put just one spoon of everything to taste but other than that, I had no room for anything else, not even the delicious ice cream they had for desert :(.

With reception coming to an end, we only had about 3 days left before we head back to US.  Now in these 3 days, I still had shopping left, plus all the remaining relatives invited us for either breakfast, lunch, and dinner which booked the 3 days completely.  So on Dec. 1, 2, and 3, we were booked for breakfast at 8:30 am at someone's place, then lunch at another family's place around 1 pm and then dinner at night around 8 pm.  I was just worried we were going to get sick eating around the clock non-stop.  But no one was willing to take a "No" for an answer :P.  My parents' wedding anniversary was on Dec. 2nd, so we celebrated it with my mom's side family at a nice restaurant with dinner and a yummy chocolate cake.  It was a lot of fun.

In between the celebrations, I met couple of my school friends after many many years.  Got to spend some quality time with them over dinner and catch up on all these years on what they have been doing.

Also after the reception was done, my mom's side family (around 40-45 people) decided to go watch a movie together.  Basically it was a small theater that they reserved for the entire family (with about 80 seats) so it was just for us :).  The problem is that they picked the wrong movie to see....Break ke baad starring Imran khan and Deepika padukone.  A bad bad choice.  It was complete waste of time, well, not complete waste because it was fun listening to the commentary by the family members during the movie.  I can't believe Imran signed that movie.  There was no story, no concept, Nothing at all.  I was waiting and waiting for the story to start or for the movie to make sense...but nothing!  Well I wasn't the only one that was disappointed with the movie...  I wished we had instead gone to see "Guzarish" and I know it wouldn't have been this disappointing but oh well.

Ahmedabad has changed a lot in all these years but one thing I don't think has changed and will never change is the traffic sense.  The reason why roads are so packed with vehicles is because everyone wants to make their own way and no one wants to follow the rules.  I was so scared to sit in the front seat in car with my cousin since he always drove bumper to bumper at the same time when 4 vehicles from 4 different directions wants to crunch in that same space!  However, I love to sit on bikes, scooters, and travel in rickshaws, and I fulfilled this wish by traveling in all those 3 vehicles :D.

That's all I can remember for the trip highlights.  If I remember something else that I haven't mentioned here, I will update this post again :).  Till then, See ya!!! :D