May is the month of marriages in India. With lots of mahurats around, one is always busy attending marriages and receptions here. So was I for the past 6 weeks and it has still not ended. But of all, the marriage that is still stuck in my head was a Muslim wedding I attended of one of my colleague.
The hall was decorated in a large open engineering college ground which could easily accommodate anywhere around 800 – 1000 people. I along with my friends reached the venue well in time. Having dressed in formals I thought it was perfect for a wedding cum reception party. But I was indeed very wrong. As soon as I entered the hall, I saw a large crowd with all (all means literally all) women in burkhas and men in sherwanis or kurtas.
Feeling like aliens we creeped our ways to the last of the seats and started our wait. Wait for what? Even we did not know what we waited for. Maybe for the bride to arrive or may be some announcement or some program or at least dinner. But there wasn’t even the slightest of the hints for anything. I was nervous as everything seemed Greek to me, but I enjoyed the curiosity. After a long time, we saw the groom entering the hall. He was heavily built with broad shoulders. We had a sigh of relief as we took his entry as a sure shot sign of the commencement of at least a program or something. We were proved wrong yet again. He along with his family went to the very first row and settled there where many people surrounded him, may be to greet him.
We then waited for another huge amount of time, not knowing what to do. Very soon there was a fuss of people rushing to the sides of the hall. We then came to know that it was the seating for dinner. There were dining tables arranged on the ground with loads of food on it. It included the bread, water bottles, and a large cola bottle. We got a table for ourselves and settled ourselves there. The waiters started to serve food which obviously had to start with chicken. He served many different dishes of chicken, then rotis, and breads and curries and then finally came in the biryani. The food was delicious. Finally came in the ice-cream which completed our appetite.
No sooner than we had our meals completed, we saw our friend, the bride who entered the hall. We all got up and stood at the border of the red carpet on which she was supposed to walk into the hall onto the stage. She looked beautiful, heavily clad with beautiful red saree with all the work, loaded with ornaments and jewellery; she walked slowly on the red carpet with her eyes looking the ground which showed a sign of feeling shy. We finally were joyed from within that at least something is happening over here which we were able to understand.
People started gathering near the stage to queue up to meet the newly wedded couple. We waited for a moment and then we too got into the line. We greeted the couple with loads of wishes and had some snaps with them. After some time, we all decided to leave as it was a day with trains on strike and everyone of us had to travel a great deal of time to get back home. It was certainly one of kind of wedding which I would remember in times to come.
