A Wedding

We have been very busy since New Year's Eve with work and recently with a little travel. We will describe the travel in some upcoming entries, but last night we attended a wedding. We know the mother of the bride from a group to which Janet belongs and the ceremonies were held at a very nice hotel here in Bangalore. Of course, it started late- as most things do here in India- except when you make the assumption they will start late and arrive late. The ceremony was held outside on a nice lawn with trees and bushes all around which were beautifully decorated with small lights- like Chistmas decorations. The bride and groom are Indian by birth, but they met while working in New York. We did not realize that there were actually to be two ceremonies- one Hindu, which we expected, while the other was Parsi. The groom is Parsi. The Hindu ceremony was short- perhaps less than 10 minutes. Someone said that it was a version from the state of Kerala from whence the bride's mother comes. There was a long break while the couple changed clothes and the Parsi priest or whatever he is called, prepared for the other ceremony. The Parsi ceremony was quite a bit longer, but interesting to see, because we will probably not see another. Parsi religion originated in Persia a long time ago and spread over the centuries, but there are not that many followers. They apparently are derived from the Zaroastrian (please forgive the spelling if not correct) faith, which is quite old. Our impression is that Parsis are fairly liberal in their views about education and equality of people. The few we have met seem to be well educated and well traveled.
After the ceremonies, we all retired to the indoor ballroom for dinner. The food was excellent and the company of our friend Mini and her son Neil was very nice.
We have been in India for more than 14 months now and it is hard to believe that the time has past so fast. We have been invited to at least 10 weddings in that period- several invitations have been from people we barely know. In fact, we received one just yesterday in the mail and we are not sure where or when we met the people! We have been told that it is "auspicious" to have foreigners attend your wedding, so that is probably the reason for some of the invitations.
People do attend in large numbers, but they are generally very casual about the whole event. Many people were quite casually dressed compared to what we would typically see at an American wedding. They talk to each other during the ceremony and speak on their mobile phones during the ceremony too! Snack foods and juice drinks were served to the people attending during the ceremonies as well as before and after.