Fabulous Mumbai

I’m now in Jaipur, back from a whirlwind experience in Mumbai. Pallavi’s wedding was such a wonderful way to end my time here. It was a great location (Mumbai) with great people (her family plus Anjali, Lisa, Roberta, and Samantha) and tons of fun. In Indian weddings, the family all sleeps in the same room at night on the floor, they just crash for the night wherever they happen to fall asleep at whatever time they fall asleep. Pallavi was nice enough to let us stay with her family, and since hotels in Mumbai are extremely expensive and all of us are at a money crunch we readily took free housing. Unfortunately it led to some crazy sleepless nights and noise at all hours. The family stays up extremely late, while I had been absolutely exhausted since leaving Chittor a few days earlier. All the travel overnight on trains meant that I really needed some good sleep, but I never really rested for the whole three days we were in Mumbai. Everyone makes noise and laughs, children cry, adults play games. It seems that Indians have an ability to sleep anywhere under any circumstances because in a situation where it was impossible for me to fall asleep regardless of how exhausted I was, people were knocked out left and right.

I had been to Mumbai before, but the other American girls hadn’t, so I spent some time being the leader and showing them around. Mumbai is a great city, and it is one of the only places people don’t care that you are a foreigner; they just care if you are in their way. Sometimes it seems impossible that one billion people live in India, but in Mumbai it seemed that the whole of the country’s population reside there. There were faces EVERYWHERE. It was overwhelming especially because I don’t remember that many people being there the first time I came.

Pallavi’s wedding was a very posh affair, but subdued. This particular marriage was a love match, so there was no arrangement and things seemed to be a little more relaxed. There weren’t a lot of over-expressions of wealth; it was worn subtlety in different ways. The venue was nice, but not over the top; but the sari’s women were wearing were by far the most expensive of all that I have seen women wear in India in one place. There were two nights of ceremony that we attended. The first night was the “tikka” ceremony and a wedding singer/dance occurred. The experience felt a little like The Wedding Singer meets Bend it Like Beckham. We American girls had a grand time dressed in our saris sipping unlimited watermelon juice out of fancy cocktail glasses. Lisa said it was like “Sex and the City Does Mumbai” and she assigned us all personalities; Samantha was Samantha, Roberta was Miranda, Lisa was Carrie and I was Charlotte (which I think would make anyone who knows me laugh because it IS pretty accurate to my personality).

The second night was the official wedding. On both occasions Pallavi looked incredible. Gorgeous. I am used to seeing Pallavi when she works, no makeup, no jewelry, in jeans or casual salwar suit; extremely low maintenance. But here she was, gussied up to the nines looking breathtaking. She looked like a completely different person, but they when she spoke or smiled I saw the Pallavi I was more accustomed to. The lenghas she wore for her ceremonies were beautiful, the jewelry was exquisite; I thought it was incredible.

Most of the time a person attends an Indian wedding, people come to eat, have a picture with the bride and groom, and then leave. The actual ceremony usually takes place at an “auspicious” hour in the middle of the night. This was an occasion where they did the ceremony early in the evening, which was great because we watched Pallavi go from bride to wife. I had only seen the actual ceremony once, in Agra last October, even though I have been to a handful of weddings, so I was happy to see it again. The vows take place in Sanskrit/Hindi and the pundit speaks very quietly, so all of us had to have interpretations by other people as to what was going on. There was one point, after the sindoor had been placed, that Pallavi started laughing. I asked Anjali what was going on and she said that the pundit had been talking about the traditional roles and duties of a wife (aka the patriarchal stuff) and Pallavi had started giggling, then flat out laughed. Anjali practically fell out of her chair. Even though it didn’t surprise either of us that she would laugh in the face of patriarchy, that she would do it at her wedding in front of her husband’s family WAS surprising. But, that was Pallavi. At one point her sister-in-law was trying to give her instructions like, “look down, be shy, be coy” but Pallavi snapped at her and stated she would be herself.

The wedding was odd for me because I have known Pallavi for so long, but I will never know her as a married woman. I am leaving now, and who knows whether I will see her again and in what context. Seeing her as a bride was somewhat surreal, but I am extremely happy for her and I hope she enjoys this new part of her life.

As for me, I am in Jaipur now. I arrived last night at about 8 p.m. after spending nearly two days on a bus (28 hours on and off) to get here. I have a little bit of a seminar here, some last minute errands to run and then I am off, back to America. Unbelievable. It is so odd to think that I have been here so long.

When I first came here, I felt like I had to create my life. And I did that; I made my experience in India my life, my host family was my family, my job was my job. And now I have to realize that all of this is in fact NOT my life and that my REAL life, the one I am trying to build by being here, is actually in America. And I am returning to it on Saturday. (I think you can visualize my mother jumping for joy!)