My Marriage

The last two months have been a blur - have never had so much change in so less time! So yeah, I'm all married now, with a ring on my wedding finger! I had always hated the thought of wearing a ring (not even the red coral that mum's always wanted me to wear) but am strangely fond of this one:-)

I'm still getting over the hangover from the marriage, the constant travel and the honeymoon we went on and yuck..I still have SO many emails to respond to that my head reels when I think of them!

I reached Delhi in the last week of June to an amazingly hot and humid climate - nothing was good without AC and I was already having dark visions of a sweaty me in the Sherwani we'd bought. The khandaan was gearing up for the marriage - last minute shopping was on and all kinds of contractors were being contacted for different things - damn..its a veritable industry in itself! I soon went from to-be-groom to right-now-mundu, doing unimaginable amounts of running around with different relatives for shopping, coordination between different service providers and also with Shikha in Lucknow for arrangements being made for them. My brother drove over from Ahmedabad with tonnes of shopping they'd done all over Gujarat and Rajasthan and he took over most of the work as soon as he arrived.

My Brother and his daughter

Yeah - some genius in our family figured that it'd be merrier if the marriage happened in Delhi because most of our and Shikha's relatives are here/around. So that meant ALSO making arrangements for her side - right from the initial coordination at the venue to the more tedious staying arrangements - they had to be put up somewhere close to where we were:-)

I can imagine why my dad constantly screamed at me in mid-June to chuck work and come home pronto!! And to give credit where it is due, I didnt do most of the dirty shopping - clothes - all of that was being coordinated between my sister in Delhi and bhabhi in Ahmedabad. It was fun on the whole, with everyone ribbing that I'd never done so much work before:-)...heck...it was MY show after all!

Relatives had started trickling in from the 2nd and it was SUPER fun, sitting with people you havent met in so many years and sharing moments of laughter, nostalgia and mirth. We've always wanted a court marriage but then would've lost out on having everyone gather in a place and having all the dhoom-dhadaka associated with marriage! At one point in time, there were 72 relatives staying over and I cannot even start to recount the fun everyone was having.

Some relatives get together for an impromptu sangeet

I finally started getting the VIP treatment from 3rd when all relatives came in and shouldered different responsibilities - till then I was a bearded nondescript looking fella, shouting into constantly ringing phones! Everyone was doing something or the other in the day - the ladies were packing stuff, overseeing the kitchen and the cooks while the men ran around looking busy:-) At night, everyone sat together on the terrace or in the lawns, yakking, laughing or just dancing to loud music. In one corner some ladies were getting henna on their hands by a driver who turned out to be a skilled henna artist (I got a little done on my hands too!), in some other corner nephews, nieces and cousins were busy plugging together audio equipment or lights, while in some other cool corner the older men were busy reflecting on the world. I went from one group to another trying to soak in everything and it felt like a kaliedoscope of images that you wanted to hold on to.

Kids were put to packing gifts under bhaiyas watchful eye

And they had their share of fun packing each other up!

Shikha's henna on the night before the engagement - my friends and I had sneaked into where they were staying while everyone was asleep

My henna - my name is an alliteration of Om

We were on the phone while waiting for the engagement ceremony to begin - some smart aleck friend caught us at it (Shikha in the background)

Friends also arrived from all over the country and it was then that it finally struck me that I was getting MARRIED! Any doubts I may have had were soon removed when the turmeric treatment started - for three days everyday, I was covered from head to toe in a mixture of turmeric and sandalwood paste to make up for all the years of tanning and sun exposure. When this was not on, different ceremonies were happening in different parts of the house and outside it.

The engagement ceremony

Shikha's ring lost a diamond (notice 2nd from bottom) while we were travelling around Switzerland:-( but it remains the MOST beautiful piece of jewellery ever coz we chose it out of thousands of rings

The engagement, tilak, god bharai happened and it was soon the day of the wedding. My bhabhis tied a kangna around my wrist and after that I could not step out of the house without an escort, so it was kind of fun being driven and escorted everywhere:-)

Dad, who's SO contentious about time, suddenly announced at 4pm that the ghodi was downstairs in an attempt to make everyone get up and start getting ready. But then everyone knows my dad and the baraat still left only at 8pm - with dad fuming and glaring at every relative coming sheepishly out of the gate to join the baraat:-) Riding the mare and watching everyone dancing below was great fun though I really wanted to jump down and dance too!!

The marriage went off pretty smoothly except for the fact that we were made to sit on the stage for like 4 hours, meeting everyone and posing for photographs with them till our jaws totally ached! The food was awesome and I still regret the fact that I did not hog more!!!

The marriage ceremony was fun inspite of the heat from the hawan and we enjoyed each and every part - from the pandit reading out our vows for each other to the special Bihari feras where you get to hold the bride close unlike the normal North Indian feras (our pandit was the family priest that had been in the family since we lived in Bihar and had been imported from Ranchi for the occasion).
The joota churayi process was cool because Shikha's sisters never got their hands on my shoes - my friends and cousins had taken good care of my shoes throughout the ceremony. So the result was her relatives telling me to give up the shoes at the end 'rasam nibhane ke liye'...so in the end I parted with my shoes for a bit after which they drove a hard bargain:-D

The Baraat starting out - sorely tempted to join in the dancing!

thats Amit and thats the hilariously funny banner the band had in the Baraat

All happy to be sitting down after the Jaimaal - little did we know that we'd have to sit like this for 4 hours, grinning away

All my buddies who made it a point to come from different parts of the country to be in the wedding:-) - having friends is zimbly super!

This is our favorite amateur pic from the entire wedding - the Panditji was reciting us our wedding vows - which were quite sweet and funny

The Saat Fere were lovely and very different from the typical North Indian weddings

The last bit was a bit boring when everyone except the Panditji got sleepy and we were almost nodding off!

We were done with the marriage and all the negotiations with the saalis by about 4am - I had been scolded by Shikha a few times in the process too - for sitting too close or making too many jokes:-) and boy it was becoming SO hot and uncomfortable in my sherwani, that I was dreaming of how it'd be when I could have that shower at home! Shikha was in an even worse shape by then coz she had been sitting with all the make up and jewellery since early evening!

The days after were even more hectic with seeing off all relatives, making plans for travel to different places where relatives lived and also planning for the honeymoon in Switzerland.

I cherish most the 3 days after the marriage when it was just close family in the house. It was awesome and I dont know when we all will be together again! Meeting all relatives and being a part of the family again after so many years was definitely the highlight. Also important was the fact that two families came together to celebrate a common occasion and became one. Shikha's family accepted me seamlessly in their midst and mine just loved her to bits. Living in different places all over the world, I think we all came so much closer as a family because of this marriage. It was awesome to see so many people celebrating an occasion and haha, even more awesome was the fact that we were the chief guests...for once!:-) The collective warmth all relatives and family brought to the occasion will always live on in Shikha's and my memories and we'll forever be thankful to them for making this marriage a beautiful event.

Shikha's first day in the Sharma rasoi after the marriage - the brides are supposed to make a special dish for the family - I had taught her to make it years back (eheh, I know Shikha's gonna get me for this piece of info)

A couple of days after marriage, we both agreed we'd love to do it all over again!

Coming up next: Marriage registration and Switzerland!