An Agra Wedding

It has been a long while since I have had the time to stop and write. The past few weeks have been full of traveling and very little school, and now the regular school weeks are starting to begin again.

The last two weeks were 3 day school weeks, and then the long weekends the whole groups spent traveling. First we went to Dharmashala the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Then last weekend a group of us went to see the Taj Mahal and attend an Indian wedding.

Travel is always filled with drama and tension, especially when it is a group traveling together when there is no designated leader or person in charge. Arranging the Dharmashala trip was a pain, we had a few options for transportation and ended up renting two SUV's and two drivers for the trip there and back. Dharmashala is IN the Himalayas. It is largely a Tibetan refugee town, the place they sought out after crossing the Himalayas on foot to escape the Chinese. It was such a great experience, and I think all of us really appreciated the break from school. The drive was LONG (22 hrs). One of the girls said its like driving from Minneapolis to Florida for 3 days of vacation. Once we got into Himachal Pradesh and saw the mountains, the drive was amazing. We just kept getting closer and closer to the mountains, and they kept getting bigger and bigger. It was by far the most beautiful drive of my life, and a great memory.

One of the best aspects of Dharmashala is that a person can feel as though they can be whoever they want and its ok. I literally forgot that I was in India, and had a hard time coming back to the harshness of Jaipur after the relaxation of the mountains. One day Jen and I went on a hike to try to climb up to a scenic overlook. After hiking for 2+hrs we stopped 45 minutes from the top exhausted and decided to turn back, since it was cloudy and we weren't sure we would be able to see anything anyway.

After that experience, I definitely feel as though I should have been born (or live!) closer to the mountains. I just loved being there, and hopefully Christine and I can get back up there before we leave in May. I would like to see more of the mountains, and experience that relaxing environment again.

The turnaround in Jaipur was very quick. We only were here two nights before Christine and I headed off to Agra. She and I headed off on Wednesday night so we could have a full day of sightseeing in Agra, and we were meeting the rest of the group at the Taj Mahal later that day. As we pulled into Agra I was getting nervous. Though it wasn't extremely late (only 9:00) it was dark, in a strange city with a bad reputation, and the two of us were by ourselves. It was one (of the many, many) times I was praying silently to myself that God would watch over us. He did. The tour books said that our hotel could be hard to get to because they don't offer a commission to autorickshaws, but we had no problem. The guy actually offered to take us around all day for a really good price (Rs. 150).

In the morning we went to Agra fort, then on to the Taj itself. The fort was very cool to see. It was once a palace, and was where Shah Jahan spent his last years of life, gazing out across the city to the monument of love he built for his favorite wife. The view from the Fort of the Taj was impressive, probably even more so in the 1600's when there was no smog to cloud the morning sky.

The Taj was a very surreal experience. I didn't really believe I was there most of the time. You can only really see the whole building from a distance, so while you are walking around on it and next to it, you cannot get a full sense of where you are. There was a group of seven of us and we all soaked as much time as we could there. I have already developed the pictures from last weekend, and the Taj is so picturesque that it looks like I am standing in front of a backdrop and not the real thing.

The next day was the day of the wedding. Our Hindi teacher Rajul had been invited to a distant relatives wedding. The groom is an NRI (Non Resident Indian) from South Carolina, and the bride was from Mumbai (Bombay). It was so much fun for all the girls to get ready and go. Most of us are wash and go these days at school, so to put on makeup and do our hair was a treat. Plus, all of the girls wore saris. I had frantically tried to get my sari ready for the wedding at the last minute, running around town getting the choli (blouse) sewn. Each of the girls walked down to Rajul's room one by one and she pinned us in. A sari is basically a long piece of fabric that is bunched and draped on the body in a beautiful way. It takes alot of confidence to wear, especially without safety pins. Non of the American girls were going to take any risks that night. We all got pinned up, and for a while I felt like one strong wind would blow me apart. Eventually I got comfortable. Alot of the girls spent alot of money on their saris. One spent $100! So they had really beautiful, but heavy and thick material. My sari was much cheaper and made of a more flowing fabric, like a sheer scarf. It was alot easier to sit in and alot more comfortable, but I was worried the pins would rip the material all night. All the girls felt like we were getting ready for prom, and Anthony, the lone boy who came with us, said he loved watching us all get ready. I don't think he had witnessed such a huge makeup and hair production before.

Once we were all coiffed we made our way to the "staging" area. Grooms in Indian weddings ride horses through the street to the ceremony, with his family and a small marching band that plays Hindi movie songs walking in front of him. We took part in the walk to the ceremony, and it was the coolest thing ever. First of all, this groom didn't have just one horse, but two horses and a carriage decked out in marigold garlands. I had never seen a groom on a carriage before. I didn't even know that it was an option! Secondly, while we were walking we would see tons of tourists lining the road watching the procession, and it was cool to think we were experiencing an aspect of Indian culture that they were missing out on. It was even odd to see them taking pictures of the group from the outside.

When we got to the hotel (one of the most famous 5 stars in all of Agra), we went inside to watch the garlanding ceremony. The bride and groom put garlands of flowers on each other and then pose for pictures in huge plush chairs, just like a king and queen on a throne. The auspicious time for the wedding was at 1:30 am, so we had a long wait for the actual marriage ceremony to begin. Some of us didn't make it, and Christine and I were the only two from our group to finally see the bride and groom married (at 3 in the morning). Most of the ceremony was stuff that we didn't understand, since it was all in Hindi. They made offerings to a makeshift altar and then walked around the fire seven times. Finally, the groom put a red powder in the part of the brides hair, and they were married.

The coolest thing about this wedding was the interaction between the bride and groom. It was an arranged marriage through the internet, so the couple had been communicating between the computer and phone for about a year. I have read so much literature about Indian brides and how miserable and sad they are on their wedding days, so it was refreshing to see how happy and excited this bride was to be married. The couple interacted very well, and I got a feeling they would be happily married for a long time (and not just because divorce is taboo). It was actually in direct contrast to weddings or marriages that I had attended or heard of in the states, where you just cross your fingers the bride and groom make it through a year of marriage before its over.

Ahh, I am exhausted. There are more tales to tell, but it will have to be another time!