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I will begin here, with Manoj astraddle the white horse, his bride, brothers and other family behind him, even though the wedding had commenced earlier. The day's ceremonies had begun with a symbolic making of the marital bed, a portrait of Lakshmi at the head, bride and groom dolls and an abundance of food, fertility and prosperity laid out over the bedspread. This was followed by a blessing ceremony, after which the bride and groom changed into their wedding clothes and gathered outside.*

The groom then mounted the white mare. The bride stepped up behind him with his brothers, sisters and other family members on both sides of her. At my side, the blue tail end barely in the fame, was a kind of motorized, rolling, double electric organ set; in front of this, the wedding band from last night's post and, all about, well wishers and wedding guests.

The custom extends back into antiquity, when grooms would carry swords as they rode their white mares and sometimes, in some places, still do.

The procession would sometimes take the groom and his family to the home of the bride, sometimes to the wedding place. Destinations can vary.

The destination today will be a Ganesha temple not far away and then back again. The music is struck by the band and the rolling organ and then Manoj follows them to the road, as his bride follows behind.

And here is the band, and there is the rolling organ, the groom seen through the window behind. The music is loud, strong, energetic.... FUN... the members of the band tilt and jerk ever so slightly this way and that way, in a manner that strikes chords of "reverence," "cool" and "soul" all at once.

And here is the view from inside the rolling organ. Even now, way up here in Wasilla, Alaska, when I look at this picture I can hear and feel the music all around me; I feel the heat of the sun, roasting the air. I remember the glare of that sun upon my head and the burn of it against my skin.

The band, leading the way up the road.

The band leads the way to the temple.

The bride and groom make their alms...

They kneel before the altar...

They look upon and hold their offerings out to the idol of Ganesha, symbol of the Hindu diety Ganesha.

Ganesha.

The couple turns to leave the temple and return to the wedding hall.

The bride, in the midst of the groom's family, as she follows his horse back towards the wedding hall.

The procession suddenly stops - but the music continues. I had attended two previous Hindu weddings, both down south in Bangalore. There had been no dancing of any kind - not during the wedding, not during the reception and feast that preceded and followed the ceremonies.

But now, two young women begin to dance...

Then men begin to dance.

Such beauty, here beneath the hot, harsh, sun! I felt blessed, just to be able to witness such a moment.

The men danced with men, and the women danced with women. Those from Southern India joined right in (right). All laughed and had fun.

Now, joyously, both families mix together, they walk to the large opening into the hallway to the open-air wedding hall.

The bride and groom enter.

Soon, the bride and groom are on the wedding platform. The priest leads them through a number of blessings and rituals.

Finally, the priest hands two necklaces to the groom.

After placing the necklace made of thin, black beads around Sujitha's neck, Manoj follows with the gold.

Manoj and Sujitha are now formally wed in Hindu tradition, as practiced by the Lingayat. For any westerners who might think of Hinduism as a monolitic religion, it is not - no more than is Christianity with its multitude of different sects, each of which shares a certain basic belief in Christ but with countless variations and interpretations of it.

So too is it in Hinduism.

After draping each other with garlands, the bride and groom stand between their parents as rice flies. There are more events to happen - the washing of the feet of bride and groom by Sujitha's Uncle Murthy and Aunt Vasanthi, the placing of rings upon the toes of the bride by her mother, the giving of gifts, the posing for pictures...*

Even as the more than 1000 guests continue to file through the reception line, bearing gifts and offering congratulations and best wishes before moving into the dining room to eat, I join Murthy and Vasanthi in a cab. Ravi and Buddy give us their goodbyes...

And off we went, to see ancient new places in India, to the north and west. Before returning to London in a week, Sujitha and Manoj would stay in the Biradar home in Pune, and would make a series of visits to a number of temples.

Originally, it had been my plan to follow them through it all, but then Murthy bought me a couple of airplane tickets, reserved multiple touring cabs and hotel rooms for us all and invited me to follow him and Vasanthi on their tour of northwestern India. Suji said I must go, that Jaipur, The Pink City of Rajasthan was wonderful, a place she would like to go. I must not miss such an opportunity, she said.

So I did - and The Pink City was wonderful, as was Udaipur and Ahmadebad, where I got to wander through a quiet and serene compound that Mahatma Ghandi had made home.

At the beginning of this series, I stated my three purposes in coming to India on this, my third trip:

To attend Sujitha and Manoj's wedding, to learn more about India and to attempt to come to terms with the self-inflicted death of Soundarya by visiting the place where she had left this life, the crematorium where her physical matter had returned to the basic state of ash and dust, and to the sacred waters into which her dust and ash had followed that of her husband Anil's.

This journey with Murthy and Vasanthi would accomplish the second goal as stated above - to a degree. India is so vast and varied in landscape, history, culture and tradition that it would take a lifetime of study and travel to even begin to grasp it - if even to begin to grasp India is possible.

I never intended to draw this Return to India series out anywhere near this long, but it was just a slow process for me to work my way through the photos to this point. Essentially, what I have done here is to make an initial, rough, edit as I have crept along and I have involved readers in the process. Except to drop in on a few images here and there for spot checks, I myself had not looked at my different takes until just before I posted them here.

I have not yet looked at the takes I made while traveling with Murthy and Vasanthi. I will save that material for later times, to be dropped in a piece here, a piece there, as I must turn the attention of this blog back to Alaska very soon.

For now, this leaves only the journey in search of coming t terms and peace in the wake of death of the beloveds. Sujitha and I took this journey together, before we left Bangalore for Pune. So I will make one more post to relate something of this journey, followed by a quick post-script.

*I plan to made two slide shows as addendums to this post. One will be a more complete view of the wedding, to include images of the preliminaries to what I have posted today, as described in the narrative above, along with a bit of the followup. The second slide show will just be a score or two of portraits and faces of some of the many people who came to the wedding.

Before I make these slide shows, I will create the final post and post script and set them to appear tomorrow, the final post about 24 hours from now, the post script either the next day or late tomorrow night. If time will allow, I will then make the slideshow addendums and drop them in between this post and the final before I go to bed tonight. If time doesn't allow, I will drop them in tomorrow - but I want to get them in tonight.

Series index:

India series, part 1: With a little help from the Indian Air Force, I begin my India series without actually beginning it
Return to India, Part 2: Pain beneath the fan, a sprawling tree, monkey on a string; those I would soon join on a train ride; the garland
Return to India, Part 3: My Facebook friend, Ramz, her mischievous brother, her nationally recognized achiever mom, her dad at the wheel
India series, Part 4: When you overtake an elephant on the highway, be sure to pass on the right; birthday remembrance; In Wasilla, pass "oversize" on the left
Return to India, Part 5: I wander the cold, empty, streets of Bangalore
Return to India, Part 6: A cow, blessed and safe; Suji takes me to lunch, then goes out with Bhanu to do some wedding shopping
Return to India, Part 7-A: A three-snack outing as mother and daughter shop for Suji's wedding
Return to India, Part 7-B: On the painted holiday of the final full moon of winter, Sujitha and Kruthika go back to get a necklace
A spacer only - the Buddha and the glamour poster ad
Return to India, Part 8: henna, to highlight her beauty and deepen the love between bride and groom; a moment on the way to the train
Return to India, Part 9: A prayer and a blessing for Suji; we head for the train; three calls to Manu
Time for another spacer - the green man who showed up at the railroad station
Return to India, Part 10: The train to Pune, part 2: Sujitha by the window as a thin thread of her India flows by
Return to India, Part 11: On the train, part 3: Ganesh Ravi - Photographer: how we discovered his hidden talent
Return to India, Part 12: On the train, part 4: After dark
Return to India, Part 13: train ride, part 5: we click and clatter into Pune, take a perilous walk and step into a world beyond imagination
Return to India, Part 14: The groom his wedding suit; me in mine
Return to India, Part 15: A function to mark the final night Sujitha would spend with her family before the wedding
Return to India, Part 16: Inside the Biradar house: portrait of an elder woman - portrait of a young girl
Return to India, Part 17: We dine in the home of the groom's parents, then join in the Puja of Kalasha
Return to India, Part 18: Slideshow: Sujitha and Manoj at the wedding hall - Engagement and Haldi Night
Return to India, Part 19: The wedding band, in the visual style of Sgt. Pepper's (10 image slide show)
Return to India, Part 20: The groom rides a white horse to the temple, there is dancing in the street; Sujitha and Manoj are wed
Return to India, Part 21 - Benediction: Sujitha takes me to the sacred waters; fish dine - a crow flies

Logbook - Wasilla - Beyond |

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Monday

Apr302012

Return to India, Part 19: The wedding band, in the visual style of Sgt. Pepper's (10 image slide show)

Monday, April 30, 2012 at 11:40PM

I have uploaded and placed the photos from Sujitha and Manojs wedding in a draft post, but right now I am just too tired to write the text. See, I am a late night person but I had to get up very early this morning to drive Margie to Anchorage so she could spend the rest of the week babysitting rascals while I continue to live like a bachelor. When I have to get up early, I don't sleep. Worse yet, I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but it didn't work.

So, instead, I am posting this 10 image slide show of the wedding band. The instant I saw them dressed in their uniforms, I thought of the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Don't forget - India was big in the Beatles' life at that time and four of the many people pictured around them in the cover are Indians. I am pretty sure they patterned their own outfits after a band very much like this one.

I loved this band - they had soul, they had character - and their music, Wow! Strong! Energetic! Nothing like the Beatles at all; nothing like anything I have heard in the US - or anywhere but here. It is a sound unto itself - an all Indian sound. I wish I could spend a month with them, hang out with them, see what their lives are like - shoot a full-blown photo essay. I would love to do that. Anyway, to see the slideshow, click either on the photo or right here. You will see them in action in the wedding post, too.

I will write the text early Tuesday - or least right after I have my breakfast and coffee and come to. Actually, it probably won't be that early.

Series index:

India series, part 1: With a little help from the Indian Air Force, I begin my India series without actually beginning it
Return to India, Part 2: Pain beneath the fan, a sprawling tree, monkey on a string; those I would soon join on a train ride; the garland
Return to India, Part 3: My Facebook friend, Ramz, her mischievous brother, her nationally recognized achiever mom, her dad at the wheel
India series, Part 4: When you overtake an elephant on the highway, be sure to pass on the right; birthday remembrance; In Wasilla, pass "oversize" on the left
Return to India, Part 5: I wander the cold, empty, streets of Bangalore
Return to India, Part 6: A cow, blessed and safe; Suji takes me to lunch, then goes out with Bhanu to do some wedding shopping
Return to India, Part 7-A: A three-snack outing as mother and daughter shop for Suji's wedding
Return to India, Part 7-B: On the painted holiday of the final full moon of winter, Sujitha and Kruthika go back to get a necklace
A spacer only - the Buddha and the glamour poster ad
Return to India, Part 8: henna, to highlight her beauty and deepen the love between bride and groom; a moment on the way to the train
Return to India, Part 9: A prayer and a blessing for Suji; we head for the train; three calls to Manu
Time for another spacer - the green man who showed up at the railroad station
Return to India, Part 10: The train to Pune, part 2: Sujitha by the window as a thin thread of her India flows by
Return to India, Part 11: On the train, part 3: Ganesh Ravi - Photographer: how we discovered his hidden talent
Return to India, Part 12: On the train, part 4: After dark
Return to India, Part 13: train ride, part 5: we click and clatter into Pune, take a perilous walk and step into a world beyond imagination
Return to India, Part 14: The groom his wedding suit; me in mine
Return to India, Part 15: A function to mark the final night Sujitha would spend with her family before the wedding
Return to India, Part 16: Inside the Biradar house: portrait of an elder woman - portrait of a young girl
Return to India, Part 17: We dine in the home of the groom's parents, then join in the Puja of Kalasha
Return to India, Part 18: Slideshow: Sujitha and Manoj at the wedding hall - Engagement and Haldi Night
Return to India, Part 19: The wedding band, in the visual style of Sgt. Pepper's (10 image slide show)
Return to India, Part 20: The groom rides a white horse to the temple, there is dancing in the street; Sujitha and Manoj are wed
Return to India, Part 21 - Benediction: Sujitha takes me to the sacred waters; fish dine - a crow flies

Logbook - Wasilla - Beyond |

Return to India, Part 18: Slideshow: Sujitha and Manoj at the wedding hall - Engagement and Haldi Night

Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 11:39PM

Instead of my usual picture-word narrative, I am doing this one in a slideshow - in part because I have too many pictures to place inside a regular blog entry. Not all of them will be of interest to everybody, but I am certain they will all be of interest to Sujitha, Manoj and relatives and friends. I am also doing it in part, because I want to get this up tonight and if I take the time to blog it in the usual way, I will have to take the time upload, resize and thumbnail the pictures and then to write it up.

This would keep me up well into the wee hours. So I am going to try it as a slide show.

Although many might look at this and think it is the wedding itself, it is not. This is the Engagement and Haldi Night. The wedding will take place the next day. On this night, the two families will greet each other with blessings and servings of sugar and gifts of coconut, and then the bride and groom will be pampered, blessed, given gifts, painted with tumeric (haldi), showered and in many other ways just made to feel special.

Everyone will have fun.

To western eyes, a couple of shots will look like the part in a wedding ceremony where the bride and groom exchange rings as an acknowledgement that they are now wed. In this case, it symbolizes the engagement.

It is still Saturday night where I sit. On Sunday, I will blog the wedding itself. Perhaps I will do it both ways - a bit of narrative and some slide show. I definitely want to do narrative, but perhaps I can add a slideshow or two to work in a few more photos. If I can find the time, maybe I will just do it in multiple narratives and no slideshow. Personally, I prefer the narrative. In my mind, I can see how to work slideshows and narrative together into one unit in which the words play off the photos, and I am certain the program to do it is out there somewhere, but I don't know where.

Someday in the not distant future, I hope to find it.

To view this slide show, click either on the picture or right here.

Series index: