The Big Fat Bihari wedding

Half drowsy in my senses I was oblivious to the fact that there were people burning something in the middle of the road in front of the Patna Junction, and the driver of the vehicle was moving at break neck speed honking continuously at anyone on the road. How did I get here, or more so why did I get here was the question I was incessantly asking myself, as we were returning to the hotel from the wedding of a dear friend. We were 4 of us huddled together in the Tata Sumo, being driven by a reckless 50 something, as we made our way back from the final rituals that marked the end of the wedding. It was 8:00 am, and we had to get back, pack, take some rest and leave for Mumbai by the 11:10 train.

Looking at the vast nothingness as we began our journey back to the financial capital, I began thinking about the run up to the wedding. We had been emotionally blackmailed into attending a wedding 1700km from Mumbai; we booked our tickets and left that Monday night. Though we had company a long train journey for me was a relatively novel experience. 30 hours would be a long haul, so we had prepared ourselves with books, loaded the phones and iPods with music, and donned the friendly cap to befriend people in the train, to tide over the pangs of the long journey. But nothing worked for the first 12 hours, until we arrived at a station named Itarsi in Madhya Pradesh. For those who do not know, Madhya Pradesh was the largest state within India until Chhattisgrah was carved out in 2000, the heart of India so to say. Most of the time spent during the journey is in MP, vast fields of wheat, coupled with flat terrain, with very less vegetation marked the landscape.

After Itarsi we spent most of our time in the cubicle where a lady friend was, more so since we befriended this cute 10 year old. Little did we know that this 10 year old would make our journey worth the while. After that the whole journey was dotted with anecdotes of performances from various “Saas Bahu” serials that are a regular feature on television. She taught us to enjoy Ludo, a lesser known game in Maharashtra. Though, until we realized that the harsh reality of child labour was sitting right in front of us, we were oblivious to the source of so much talent packed in such a small package.

We arrived in Patna on a cold Wednesday morning, promptly escorted to out hotel by the groom to be to rest until the wedding. Sight seeing was on our minds but that was restricted to a visit to a British era granary in Patna called “Gool ghar”, the place being as the name suggests. The Ganges was a beautiful sight to see atop the granary.

We rested a while, later to prepare ourselves for the big fat wedding. As I am told by my trusted sources all north Indian weddings begin with the “Baraat” late into the evening. The wedding rituals begin at the girls place early in the morning at about 2 am. The dawn of the new day mark the end of the rituals of the wedding and the successful union of the couple in matrimony. This wedding was no different, as we prepared ourselves for the long haul; I was intent on observing every bit of the rituals. The groom dressed and ready was subjected to a ritual of tamarind water drinking at his house, after which he along with his mother travels to the nearest temple to solemnize the handing over of the groom to the girl’s people by the groom’s mother. We then proceeded to the venue of the “Baraat“, where we were required to feast on snacks to energize us to dance all the way to the house of the bride to be. The “Baraat” requires a person to have a unique ability. It requires the person to be adept in street dance, subject to blaring music, similar to a carnival in celebration of the arrival of the groom. I had none of those qualities so was restricted to taking photographs of the moving procession, which had blocked off half the road, forcing traffic to be diverted through the opposite lane. No heckling by the local cops made any difference to the procession. As I was told later that wedding days are the most worrisome for travelers, since all forms of transportation is employed leaving travelers to fend for themselves. As it were we proceeded and reached the girls place at 12:15 am. Dinner was served, but not before the garlanding ceremony. This ceremony marks the beginning of the wedding. The thing about the garlanding is that the boy’s people must hoist him so that the girl is not allowed to garland him easily. The sole purpose is make the bride feel the achievement of garlanding the boy, and the boy to hang onto his bachelorhood a while longer. Though sadly the groom’s friends gave in too soon.

The rituals began with the girl’s people performing some rituals on the groom, after which the main pooja began with the bride and the groom squatting in front of the ritual pyre. Most of it seemed like French, Greek and Latin to me, since the narration was in Sanskrit. There was a flow of sentiments as the pooja began both from the girl and from her close relatives, where as we were busy with fun and frolicking As part of the rituals in the end the bride and the groom were made to sit in the centre of a wooden frame representing the house, and the Pandit began the proceedings. It ended with the bride being held by her hands by the groom, circling the frame 7 times (to represent the togetherness of the couple for 7 lives). The bride had in her hand a receptacle. Each time the brother of the bride would put corn into the receptacle and the groom would shake it off the receptacle. This whole activity went on till they completed 7 rounds of the frame. Interestingly after the completion of each round the bride had to place her foot on a wooden strip containing rice, after which the groom was required to remove her foot from the strip. This according to the pandit was representative of the duty of a husband to correct his wife incase she steps the wrong way, represented by her stepping on the strip of wood. We congratulated the bride and the groom on their achievement of the marathon marriage ceremony and left.

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