Night of Ala Bollywood Wedding

Yesterday evening I attended an Indian wedding for the very first time. The wedding reception was held at a community hall in Kerinchi. The bride's our colleague of Singh-Chinese parentage. Earlier me and some of my colleagues met at our office building and car-pooled together to the wedding venue. Once we entered the hall, the wedding ritual has already started with the groom sitting under a canopy called mandap set on the stage together with the bride's relative next to him, the priest and close family members close by observing the ceremony. At the centre of the mandap were the sacred fire and other ritual items such as coconut, flower garlands, pots of water, rice among a few, visible from where I was sitting. After the groom left the mandap it was the bride's turn to go through the ceremony with the priest and eventually both bride and groom went through the ceremony together. It was definitely a long wedding ritual and prayers because even after we have finished eating, the ceremony was still going on. Luckily we did not have to wait for the ceremony to end to eat. I was starving as I did not have anything for lunch that day.

The ceremony came to an end when the mangalsutra necklace was put around the bride's neck, the bride and groom exchanged garlands and the family members threw rice and flowers towards the bride and groom. I was in awe observing how symbolistic each ritual was and how even the family members were very much involved and have a very important part in the ceremony. The finale was for the guests to walk up to the mandap where everybody were required to take their shoes off before entering the mandap to congratulate the bride and groom and give them their wedding presents.

Flanked by some of our colleagues who were clad in beautiful sarees

Another interesting obervation was to see some of our colleagues dressed in sarees. It felt like a Bollywood wedding especially with some other guests in their beautiful sarees and mixed of Hindi and Indian songs playing in the background. If only I knew they were planning to wear sarees, I would have joined the bandwagon. So, everybody made a pack to wear sarees in the next Indian wedding which will probably be some time in June.

Background Song : Dil Ne Yeh Kaha Hai Dil Se from Dhadkan