There is a small section of India high in the north which lies between Nepal, Bangladesh, and Tibet. The town is called Siliguri and on the 13th of next month I will take a Domestic flight there for my Sister-in-Law's wedding reception. My to-be Brother-In-Law is from Siliguri and although the whole wedding was originally planned to take place there, by some act of God it was later moved to Bangalore where my in laws live most of the time currently.
So, and Indian wedding.....everyone knows of the bright colored clothing, the henna tattoo's, and the beautiful flowered decorated setting. But, is this really the way Indian weddings are? Well, chances are good those things will be included but what about the things nobody talks about? What about the fact that most fathers save their whole lives to give their daughters a proper wedding? What about the internal family struggles which go on between tradition and modern reality? How do you organize such a large event in such a disorganized place? I had all these questions and then some.
Well, here is what I know so far: As I said, the wedding was moved to Bangalore a few months back due to my Father-In-Law's ongoing illness. Although it is customary to have the wedding where the groom's family is from, luckily his family recognized how difficult this would be for my Father-In-Law and allowed it to be moved to where they are living now and he is receiving his chemo.
Because the bride's family holds most of the monetary obligation for the wedding (which in Indian terms more or less is also the responsibility of the oldest/only son of the family which just so happens to be the person I married- didn't see that in the fine print anywhere....grr), the costs can be really overwhelming due to all the customs and rules that apparently must be followed in order to provide a proper wedding. These include a large amount of 22k gold jewelry for both bride and groom, clothes for bride and groom as well as groom's whole family, a whole suitcase of items ranging from a shaving kit to watches to makeup and everything in between, in addition to several wedding outfits of various fanciness level. Oh and did I mention the bride's family also pays for the groom's family's transportation, room and board, and food for the entire time they are in attendance of the wedding which is usually the good part of the week.
To save money, apparently my in-laws thought it was a good idea to just have all of the Roy family members stay with us in their 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom Bangalore suburb apartment. This apartment is currently inhabited by 4 people, which to most people here would be too many, so with us 5 it is painfully overcrowded so I'm having a hard time understanding how we will fit 20 some additional people in there. I have been assured that we will have our 'usual' bedroom which includes an attached western bathroom which should seem like a luxury considering the rest of the people will share 1 other bedroom and a living room and 1 Indian style bathroom, but I'm really not sure I see a lot of luxury in my future.
Indian people seem to have an amazing ability to adapt to almost any circumstance. Most of us would be appalled at the thought of curling up next to an aunt or an uncle or some long lost cousin, but either they truly don't mind or are just too polite to say anything. I think its a mix of the two- but definitely there is a greater sense of family closeness than I would be comfortable with, so I guess I'll just sleep in a tiny bedroom with my 5 family members and try not to complain....
As for the wedding, in India there are generally 2 types of marriages: Arranged or Love. Arranged have a wide variety of options including not knowing the other person at all to being quite close to them and Love can either be a person of your choosing or a person that your parent's don't approve of or one that they do. My sister-in-law's marriage is somewhere in between these two which is somewhat unique from what I can gather. Her fiance is someone she worked with for years that obviously really liked her and he hung around long enough and knew the family well enough for them to decide this is someone that she should probably marry. I think she saw him as a friend but still agreed and for the last 2 years has been 'engaged' to him for lack of a better term. Due to some family deaths and my father-in-law's illness, the wedding has been postponed several times. I think the uniqueness of their arrangement has finally taken its toll in the last month when I started to learn that she was starting to vocalize her lack of desire to marry him. Well, a few tense phone calls and a few 'almost' plane trips for Roy home and she was convinced to just forget about any doubts she has and go with it. I feel kinda bad about this, but from what I've learned, a runaway bride is somewhat; lets say 'frowned upon' there....meaning there is a good chance the father would be so disgraced by a cancelled wedding due to this circumstance that he will either commit suicide or kill the whole family. I didn't care to test this theory at all, and took matters into my own hands and sat for over an hour on the webcam convincing her he was a good guy and she was doing the right thing.
I think my husband is counting down the days until it is over and I think it will be a lot of stress gone for everyone once it is over and in Indian culture, she will no longer be our responsibility, as it is the case that when a girl is married she becomes part of the groom's family. The good news for her is he has his own apartment in Bangalore and she isn't joining some big joint family, but that's more my opinion than hers. Some people seem to like those big joint families, but for me it's a little unimaginable.
This will be the first time I am meeting my husband's extended family so I'm sure there will be the uncomfortable stares, awkward moments when I have no clue what they said, and the lonely (on my part) moments when everyone is speaking Bengali and until someone mentions shoes, water, monkey's, oranges, or one of the other few Bengali words I know I will be sitting and listening to what might as well be background music while they are all visiting and chatting about God-knows-what. At least Kaila and Jordan will be there to visit with and Shivali is always a good distraction, even though I'm sure she will be busy entertaining my in laws most of the time.
So, as you can imagine by now this may very well be my best adventure yet. To a logistics person the lack of organization and constant changes are enough to send me to the mental hospital, but I am going to do my best to surrender to India and just go with it. I can't promise every moment will be glamorous, but I know for sure it will be something to blog about. Flight leaves Wednesday!
So, and Indian wedding.....everyone knows of the bright colored clothing, the henna tattoo's, and the beautiful flowered decorated setting. But, is this really the way Indian weddings are? Well, chances are good those things will be included but what about the things nobody talks about? What about the fact that most fathers save their whole lives to give their daughters a proper wedding? What about the internal family struggles which go on between tradition and modern reality? How do you organize such a large event in such a disorganized place? I had all these questions and then some.
Well, here is what I know so far: As I said, the wedding was moved to Bangalore a few months back due to my Father-In-Law's ongoing illness. Although it is customary to have the wedding where the groom's family is from, luckily his family recognized how difficult this would be for my Father-In-Law and allowed it to be moved to where they are living now and he is receiving his chemo.
Because the bride's family holds most of the monetary obligation for the wedding (which in Indian terms more or less is also the responsibility of the oldest/only son of the family which just so happens to be the person I married- didn't see that in the fine print anywhere....grr), the costs can be really overwhelming due to all the customs and rules that apparently must be followed in order to provide a proper wedding. These include a large amount of 22k gold jewelry for both bride and groom, clothes for bride and groom as well as groom's whole family, a whole suitcase of items ranging from a shaving kit to watches to makeup and everything in between, in addition to several wedding outfits of various fanciness level. Oh and did I mention the bride's family also pays for the groom's family's transportation, room and board, and food for the entire time they are in attendance of the wedding which is usually the good part of the week.
To save money, apparently my in-laws thought it was a good idea to just have all of the Roy family members stay with us in their 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom Bangalore suburb apartment. This apartment is currently inhabited by 4 people, which to most people here would be too many, so with us 5 it is painfully overcrowded so I'm having a hard time understanding how we will fit 20 some additional people in there. I have been assured that we will have our 'usual' bedroom which includes an attached western bathroom which should seem like a luxury considering the rest of the people will share 1 other bedroom and a living room and 1 Indian style bathroom, but I'm really not sure I see a lot of luxury in my future.
Indian people seem to have an amazing ability to adapt to almost any circumstance. Most of us would be appalled at the thought of curling up next to an aunt or an uncle or some long lost cousin, but either they truly don't mind or are just too polite to say anything. I think its a mix of the two- but definitely there is a greater sense of family closeness than I would be comfortable with, so I guess I'll just sleep in a tiny bedroom with my 5 family members and try not to complain....
As for the wedding, in India there are generally 2 types of marriages: Arranged or Love. Arranged have a wide variety of options including not knowing the other person at all to being quite close to them and Love can either be a person of your choosing or a person that your parent's don't approve of or one that they do. My sister-in-law's marriage is somewhere in between these two which is somewhat unique from what I can gather. Her fiance is someone she worked with for years that obviously really liked her and he hung around long enough and knew the family well enough for them to decide this is someone that she should probably marry. I think she saw him as a friend but still agreed and for the last 2 years has been 'engaged' to him for lack of a better term. Due to some family deaths and my father-in-law's illness, the wedding has been postponed several times. I think the uniqueness of their arrangement has finally taken its toll in the last month when I started to learn that she was starting to vocalize her lack of desire to marry him. Well, a few tense phone calls and a few 'almost' plane trips for Roy home and she was convinced to just forget about any doubts she has and go with it. I feel kinda bad about this, but from what I've learned, a runaway bride is somewhat; lets say 'frowned upon' there....meaning there is a good chance the father would be so disgraced by a cancelled wedding due to this circumstance that he will either commit suicide or kill the whole family. I didn't care to test this theory at all, and took matters into my own hands and sat for over an hour on the webcam convincing her he was a good guy and she was doing the right thing.
I think my husband is counting down the days until it is over and I think it will be a lot of stress gone for everyone once it is over and in Indian culture, she will no longer be our responsibility, as it is the case that when a girl is married she becomes part of the groom's family. The good news for her is he has his own apartment in Bangalore and she isn't joining some big joint family, but that's more my opinion than hers. Some people seem to like those big joint families, but for me it's a little unimaginable.
This will be the first time I am meeting my husband's extended family so I'm sure there will be the uncomfortable stares, awkward moments when I have no clue what they said, and the lonely (on my part) moments when everyone is speaking Bengali and until someone mentions shoes, water, monkey's, oranges, or one of the other few Bengali words I know I will be sitting and listening to what might as well be background music while they are all visiting and chatting about God-knows-what. At least Kaila and Jordan will be there to visit with and Shivali is always a good distraction, even though I'm sure she will be busy entertaining my in laws most of the time.
So, as you can imagine by now this may very well be my best adventure yet. To a logistics person the lack of organization and constant changes are enough to send me to the mental hospital, but I am going to do my best to surrender to India and just go with it. I can't promise every moment will be glamorous, but I know for sure it will be something to blog about. Flight leaves Wednesday!
