Note: As I consider a wedding to be a private occasion, I have not included many photos of the hosts or guests.
Two more days till the wedding but the ceremonies have begun in earnest (in addition to the small bits yesterday). I turned up at Roshan’s apartment around 0900 and about half hour later, walked with the men to the nearby temple situation in a road junction.
After some prayers, we waited by the temple and the pick-up truck that had been equipped with huge speakers, for the bullock cart to arrive. It was running late.
The noise generated by those blasters were deafening and I moved around to avoid its wrath while trying to get a good insight into various happenings.
Around 1000, a decorated cart pulled by two white decorated bullocks turned up. On the cart was a mix of mango branches and neem branches.
We followed the cart back to the apartment where it parked outside the gate. Guests took their turns to give their offering or blessing (with incense) on a tray to the bullocks then dot each of them with powdered colour.
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- Waiting at the temple.
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- At the temple.
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- The bullock cart arrives.
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- The wedding band play from the back of the pickup truck.
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- Guests take turns to give their offering.
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- With the bullocks in front of the apartment.
With many guests taking their turns this took over an hour with the music blasting. When all this was done, it was the women’s turn to go to the same temple but I followed along.
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- Walking back to the temple.
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- Back at the temple.
I returned to the hotel afterwards for lunch. In the evening, Tom joined me for dinner at my hotel restaurant while Beth and Jen were out shopping. He hadn’t set up his Uber so I ordered his auto-rickshaw both ways and treated him for dinner too. India is still very cheap for people used to western prices so I was able to show more hospitality than in other places.