Indian Culture 101: Festivals and Weddings

On Thursday Kathleen and Justine departed, and on Sunday Jason, Monica, Hannah and Liz followed, leaving just Ben, Ayala, Heidi and I for the next week. We were sad to see the others go, but are curious to meet the new volunteers, who will arrive next week.

Meanwhile, in the last few days have been one fun lesson after another in Indian culture. This weekend was Holi festival, which celebrates the coming of spring with drinking, dancing and color. Everyone runs around for two days dousing each other with colored water, rubbing colored powder on one another, and pelting everyone with water balloons.

Ayala and I walked around town a little on Saturday and got moderately covered with colored powder, which seemed to deeply amuse the locals. I don’t think they’re used to seeing westerners participate in their customs.

Then on Sunday we celebrated Holi with the CCS staff, which made Saturday pale in comparison. The staff – and soon the rest of too – didn’t hold back in rubbing vast amounts of colored powder in our hair, on our faces and on our clothes. Lalu and Goldy got on the roof and doused anyone foolish (or drunk) enough to stand near the building with buckets of water. We played drinking games, danced, and were just generally silly. We all agreed we need to start up Holi celebrations in the U.S. – it beats the pants off our commercial-driven, colored-powder-lacking holidays.

In the midst of all the Holi celebrations, we also witnessed the build-up to the wedding of our next-door neighbor’s son. For days the house has been decorated and we’ve enjoyed the sounds of live bands and singing for hours on end. We were invited to the actual wedding ceremony, so Ayala and I had our hands hennaed that day, which women traditionally do for weddings.

The ceremony was held last night at a community hall about an hour’s drive from Dharamsala. That is, it would have been an hour if we had made no stops. But our two-van caravan stopped multiple times to pre-party by the roadside, so we were pretty lively by the time we got there (don’t worry Mom, the drivers weren’t drinking). For some reason, drinking at weddings is only for family and is restricted to special areas, so everyone else gets lit in advance, and/or secretly drinks from their own stash at the reception.

The wedding itself was a whirlwind. We arrived around 9pm, and shortly thereafter the bride was brought in. The crowd (which we were told was about 500 people) then rushed the stage to take endless photos and video. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the bride and groom were celebrities. The actual ceremony involved the two of them placing wreaths of flowers over each other’s heads – and that’s it, now they’re married. There was recently a big scandal where a bride got all the way to the stage, then put the wreath over her lover’s head instead of the groom. And thus she was able to marry her lover, because once the wreath is placed, that’s it – no undoing it.

After the wreath-swap, we enjoyed the trays of food that passed non-stop and joined in the dancing a bit. Unfortunately, one guy got a little overly friendly with Heidi, and when it was time to go, he kept insisting that she couldn’t leave, because she had promised him another dance. One of the staffers pulled us out of there and we gratefully made our escape.

We did wonder why we were leaving after being there only an hour and a half though. It turns out that they were about to begin a long ceremony that involves walking around a fire several times, and if we hadn’t left then, we would have had to stay through the whole thing. So off we went for our extremely bumpy ride home, stopping once to change a punctured tire – such are the risks of driving in India.

Today I stayed home from volunteering – apparently amidst all the excitement of the last few days, something didn’t sit well with my stomach… again. I wonder how long it takes to build up the iron stomach this country requires? More than three weeks, of this I am sure.

More photos at http://babas.typepad.com/photos/my_gap_year_3/.

Comments

[Jan]

First, do these colors wash out of your clothes? If they do, are ya gonna bring some back with you? Looks like it could be a lot of fun!

[Barbara Grimes]

Well, the colors mostly came out of my jeans, but not the white top. And more importantly, we all still have various hints of color in our hair. One side of mine has a slight greenish hue, and the other side has a reddish hue. The worst was Monica's hair though, which was blonde before, but is now quite green. :P

[Eva]

Wow. I'm so jealous! Enjoy.

[Connie]

You look so relaxed and happy :-)

[Soumyaranjan Dash]

Really a colorful Indian experience!