Attended a Tamil-Brahman wedding this morning at the crack of dawn. We set on the road at 7:00am to drive to Cochin, which is about a 45 minute drive. Hindu weddings usually start early in the morning with a breakfast and continue to the ceremony. It is considered auspicious to marry between the hours of 9:30am and 10:30am. Muhurtham is the term used to describe this auspicious time frame. The ceremony lasts many hours and generally takes place on a platform with the pujaris (priests) bride and groom at the center and immediate family members.Appachan and I ran into some hectic traffic on the way to the wedding so we missed the breakfast portion. To endure the long ceremony we decided to stop at a roadside hotel for a quick breakfast of masala dosas and coffee. A note to readers: a hotel in South India refers to a cafe style restaurant, not an actual western style hotel. After a quick bite we dashed to the ceremony.
When we arrived there was a large decorated room with portable chairs arranged and hundreds of guests sitting and watching the ceremony. Unlike a Western wedding ceremony the attendants do not sit quietly until the ceremony is over, they mingle and chat as the ceremony is taking place on the platform. I wandered around taking pictures and chatting with the guests. I stand out being a foreigner so many are curious to know me and take me aside and explain the festivities. It was a wonderful lively wedding.
The ceremony itself is complex. It has many parts to it and the bride, groom, and family all take part in elaborate rituals. I am not going to explain each part of the wedding, that info can be researched, but it is important to note that Hindu weddings differ quite a bit depending on where you are in India.
Bollywood has elevated the wonderful drama of North Indian weddings to stagecraft. We see these movies and the color and dancing and assume that all weddings follow this same format. In reality these ritual weddings can differ greatly. All are beautiful, but South Indian weddings in particular have a very traditional feel. They are austere and serious. It will be a great experience to attend a big North Indian - Punjabi extravaganza later this month in Dehli, then Ajith's cousin's Syrian Christian wedding in Kerala in January. I will compare them to this Tamil-Brahman wedding. I feel blessed that I will be able to see many weddings on this visit to India. I will be sure to post pictures.
Below are some pictures, and at the very end of the blog I posted a few videos. Appologies for poor quality. It was hard to get a clear line of site with all the people traffic on and off the platform.
After a few hours they started serving the sadya in the lower level of the building. A Hindu sadya is a great experience. It is a traditional South Indian meal that is entirely vegetarian. It is served on a banana leaf and men come around and dish tiny portions onto your leaf. I can clumsily liken it to a buffet that comes to you, or dim sum, only the portions are tiny. Just enough for a taste. It was delicious and the best part was the hot payasams that come at the end. Payasam is a South Indian pudding made of milk, jaggery, and lentils/rice. There are wide varieties, but today's was a delicious milk payasam that tasted like hot milky caramel. I loved it. The only downside to a sadya is you have to eat fast. They have hundreds of guests at a traditional Hindu wedding and they often let people eat in shifts. About 15 minutes, then they start to clear the placements fold up the leaves and lay new fresh table covers and banana leaves. In all a wonderful experience.
Namaste,
Christy
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