David India blog - Eine christliche Hochzeit in Indien

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David is still sick, and is staying in bed.
You can read the whole post in German and see the photos at the blog's site: http://indiablog.de/

Eine christliche Hochzeit in Indien
7th Feb

David is not feeling well at all. He isn't able to speak, he has high temperature and he still coughs. We cancelled the hindu-wedding this morning form our what-to-do. I take him to his tea and toast in the roof-restaurant, so he wouldn't take his antibiotics on empty stomach. He feels even worse after that and goes back to bed.
The electricity, which is normally switched off from 7:00 to 9:00 o'clock isn't working the whole day in the whole city. Supposedly it's because of some construction work on the electric lines. Some bigger stores have their own generators for their refrigerators & cash registers. To take some money out of the band, Santosch takes me to a bank on a motorcycle, which is like 15km away and in the middle of nowhere. Two guards with machineguns look at us and let us go into a small room. I read a small paper glued on the AMT, where is handwritten, that the maximal withdrawal of 4000Rs (cca 65€). I stick the card in and it asks me about the language. Unfortunately, the answering symbols on the screen don't match the buttons on the side, so I choose the wrong language. By the next answer, I don't understand a word and I wait for too long, so the AMT sticks my card out again. I stick it in again and this time I choose the right language. It wants my pin from me and makes me choose between "Continue" and "Cancel". I choose "Continue", but the program breaks down again by telling me there has been a mistake. I can see through the door, that the guards look at me and then at themselves. I stick the card in one more time and give in my pin before I choose anything. There is 8 new choices again from changing the pin to ground a depot. I don't understand a word and I want to choose the most obvious choice, but the AMT breaks down again, I was too slow. One of the guards knocks and looks at me. I just show him thumbs up and smile like I'm tortured. So again, am I sweating? This time it works and the ATM gives me my money. I leave the room and I bump into a guard hugging his gun and he asks me, if I am alright and if I got my money. I confirm, wish him a good day and I am glad to be out of there again.

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Around 5:00 we're leaving for the Christian wedding. David stays in bed. We come to an ornated house, in front of it is marching band dressed in blue (it sounds more Mexican to me) and plays. We find ourselves in front of the house of the groom, actually of his parents. It's too small for that many guests, who are already there. That's why we all go to a church, of course with the marching band behind us. The church is only 300m away, so the traffic situation isn't that bad with the crowd moving. When we come to the church, we're waiting for the bride.

There are approximately 100 guests here, most of them formally dressed, men in suits, and women in colored saris. There are also colorful lights on the church, lampions and I feel in my shorts a bit underdressed. And there are also hundreds of thousands of huge mosquitos. There are chairs brought for the guests and it takes some time, until the bride is here. The band is always standing in two rows and playing some song, everyone hopes, that the bride comes now, but uselessly. Finally, a good hour later, the bride comes in. Like a princess, circled by a crowd of people, so you can barely see her. She is wearing a light blue sari with golden stripes made of silk and she has a diamond diadem in her hair.

In front of the church, the priest slows them down and sprinkles them with holy water (please excuse my bad knowledge of Christian ceremonies, maybe it isn't that different from German manners). The bride and the groom come into the church and stand in front of the altar, when the guests sit on their places.

Everything is being said in Tamil, but I can recognize Father Ours. Klaus, seems like he's even less of a Christian rituals fan than me is pushing me to leave. So in an unwatched moment we left 11/2 hours of praying, oaths, vows and good intentions behind us. We want to come back to the party again.
First I wanted to go see David and change my clothes. David ate his potatoes & some yoghurt that I ordered for him, while we were gone and took his pill. The temperature is better, but he still feels bad. I asked him, if I should stay? But he wants me to go eat something on the wedding and when comeback right away. I promise it to him and we're on our way again.
Me, Santosch, Jan and Klaus are in a three-wheel taxi and we get to a place almost as big as a football field. Officially 350 guests were invited, but this could also be 550. Every guest gets a bowl of fruit, there's a jumping castle for the children, popcorn, cotton candy, Mickey Mouse and Maja Bee walking around, a laser show when there's loud Indian pop music playing, loud fireworks everywhere, which lighten the night sky. There's a camera crew here and we can see on a big screen all the things that are here. There's a stage build up, where are two sofas looking like thrones. In front of it is a photographer taking care of his stuff, tripods, and indirect lights and so on.
Finally, the husband and wife come in, the crows takes them to the stage. On the right and on the left side are stairs and we observe, how a big pile of people is being build in front of the left stairs. And now we understand it. Every person wants to have their picture taken with the bride and the groom.

We are full and we want to leave, when Djj comes, the brother of the groom, who invited us here and he wants us to take a picture with the newly-weds. We come back to the stage and we see, that the queue isn't any shorter. We ask Djj, if we have to stand there too, but he thinks of us as of honorary guests (we are the only white people here), which should be on a special photo, only with the family, so at the end. A grimace became by the time from the happy smiles of the bride and the groom, they can barely stand up, but they still can do it. We finally get to the stage, congratulate them and smile into the camera. Done, we leave the wedding and get back. I say goodbye right away and go to see how David is doing. He is awake and he is feeling better. Finally.

Translations by http://panik-musik.blog.cz/
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