Two nights ago we received a call on Hemal’s mobile phone from one of the farmers in Dewas who we have visited during our first week in Indore. His daughter is getting married this Saturday and he happily invites all CSC members to the wedding. Wow… we cannot miss this opportunity. Six of us went to the wedding. Not knowing what neither an Indian nor an Indian village wedding would be like we asked Hemal a lot of questions, so that we would not turn up with an inappropriate gift or clothing. When arriving at the wedding it took me a few minutes to recognize that the farm that we have visited is the ‘venue’ for the wedding, it totally transformed.
the farm transformed to a festival area
We were welcomed into the wedding with bindis and flowers. After passing the entrance we saw a huge crowd of people… I am not good in guessing but it was more than 700 people I would say. The whole village seemed to be there. Right away we were led to the stage where the newly weds were sitting all evening welcoming their guests, receiving congratulations and blessings. A group picture was taken by a photographer of each of the guests.
After some time, more and more other guests seemed to have spotted us. One has to explain that most of them have probably never seen a foreigner before, they were very excited to see us and plenty of pictures were taken with cameras and mobile phones. After 3 weeks in India we have all experienced plenty of situations where we have been asked for pictures but this was very extreme, felt a bit like being a celebrity.
From left: Tyler, Patrick, Maco,
me, Jessica, Amalia and Hemal
Maco feeding me
Then it was time for us to have dinner. We were sitting down in a row on the floor as any other guest. Received a plate and a number of different things were given to us… bread, dal, spicy sauce as well as dessert. It seems to be a tradition that the desserts is fed to you, instead of being put on your plate. Suddenly Maco was missing but he reappeared with a bowl of that dessert in his hands and started feeding us as well as the locals… hilarious ;o)
After dinner it was time for us to burn some of those calories. The DJ played a special song for us which meant translated ‘beautiful faces’ (if I remember correctly) and we went off to the dance floor and enjoyed ourselves, even though there was no way to keep up with the locals.
And then it was already time to leave and go back to the hotel. We really enjoyed the wedding and while driving back we looked at each others photos and relived some of what we have just experienced. Awesome… thanks for the great memories, certainly very special ones.
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