A Wedding

A few nights ago I went to the marriage of our driver Ansari's sister in law. Well, we went to part of it anyway. Weddings here can take up to eight days and involve thousands of guests. Since Ansari's family doesn't have much money, they only had a three day wedding with about five hundred guests!

It was a pretty liberal Muslim wedding in a large reception hall. The bride sat upstairs with all the women, and the groom sat downstairs with all the men. But I use the term "with" very loosely. In fact they both sat by themselves on small stages in front of all the guests who sat in chairs arranged facing the stage as though a performance was going to start. But nothing ever did. The groom just sat up there with bright lights shining on him being ignored by everyone but the occasional photographer. I can only assume the bride was doing the same thing because other than a brief moment when the rules were bent on my behalf, men were not allowed upstairs into the women's section.

I didn't stay long, but I arrived at around 9:00 or 10:00 at night, and there looked to be no end to the sitting around and ignoring the groom when I left at 11:00. I kept asking what everyone was waiting for, and the answer I got was consistently "Nothing", coupled with a puzzled stare as if they wanted to ask, "What on earth makes you think we're waiting for something?"

But at least I got to meet Ansari's family. I have met his mother and his wife before, this night I go to meet his four children who were completely out of control, and his father. It took him the better part of an hour to get all four of them to hold still in the same place, since there were tons of other children with whom they could run screaming up and down the stairs and out into the road. As one came flying by Ansari would reach out and grab hold of them by the arm and not let go. Then another would come by a few minutes, and Ansari would grab them with his free arm. But since there are four children and, like the rest of us he only has two arms, he would eventually have to let go of one of them to grab another, and then the first was off again.

The bride's family allowed us to take a photo with her veil lifted. It is an arranged marriage, as are most of the marriages here, and so it is customary for the bride and groom not to meet until the final day of festivities. When this photo was taken, they still hadn't met, and as you can see, she doesn't look as though she's looking forward to it too much. But then maybe she was just scared that her sister was lifting up her veil so some giant could take her photo. When I saw her I was taken aback because she looks like she's about thirteen years old, and the groom I had just met was at least thirty. But Ansari assured me that she was 22 years old. But apparently that wouldn't matter anyway, because he also assured me that girls of any age are married off if their parents find a suitable husband because I guess they're afraid another husband might not present himself farther down the road. Although I'm not sure this fear is entirely legitimate because thanks to the combination of uncontrollable population growth and a high rate of female infanticide, India is literally TEEMING with men. But that is a rant for another day...

Ansari's family was incredibly happy because it seems this wedding was hard to bring about. There were two major difficulties. 1- Apparently the bride was undesirable: I was told that because she's "short and thin" no one would want her, so the family had to settle for whoever would accept their meager dowry. 2- The groom had an older brother, who wasn't married yet, and his family had to scramble and get him a bride so he'd be married before the younger one.

In this picture we are standing in the room they had set aside to display the dowry gifts. Some clothes, a bed, and a few other articles of furniture. The three boys and the girl in red are Ansari's kids. The others are some cousins who wanted to be in the shot.