The windstorm last night turned into a thunderstorm and by the time it was over the floors in Ashok’s home were covered in sand and the electricity was kaput and while he had an inverter to obtain power from his solar battery power was only intermittent throughout the night.
At 4am the local temple started to blare out its “tune” for the next 2 hours and during that time Gita was up grinding wheat noisily outside our bedroom. We laid on the bed for as long as we could before getting up and Ashok wasn’t there as he is heavily involved in the wedding preparations as well as dealing with the electrical issues. While Gita was present communicating with her in any worthwhile way is not possible.
Much as we welcomed the opportunity to stay in the village the lack of sleep and staying in a half completed house including taking over the only bedroom fit for occupation started to create some stress (for us at least) so we decided to bail.
Discussed with Ashok when he returned and though a difficult conversation from our point of view given the hospitality he had shown he understood and arranged for us to move back into the local hotel later in the day.
Today is the day the wedding ceremonies start and at around 8.30 the villagers en mass started to congregate on a plot adjacent to Ashok’s place, the women sitting in a circle together each tipping a quantity of wheat into a bowl before they sat and the men sitting in another group.
The ladies sang various chants before Sapna moved over to sit in front of the men’s circle where a blessing or similar took place and where her immediate relations offered or indicated their wedding gifts. Ashok had been away for most of yesterday afternoon purchasing his gifts which were a bed, bed covers, a wardrobe and a sofa (total spent 88,000rs / $1600NZD some of which had to be put on an account.
The gifts were then loaded onto a truck to take to the groom’s talik ceremony in the afternoon.
As we watched the men loading the truck a group of late teens early twenty males started chatting and then invited us to sit around with them while they had a “smoke” so we went into another house and sat around chatting, quizzing each other on our cultures and families while the hookah was passed around.
We then moved to Sapna’s home where her immediate family took part in another ceremony where a turmeric paste was smeared on her knees, her cheeks and her head covering all the time the woman lead by one from the Brahman caste continued their chants.
Then relatives, each a couple, came forward and the male scooped a mixture of curd and mustard oil with a coin and placed that mixture on Sapna’s hair which the female would spread through her hair – each couple doing it seven times and then the male would pass some money to a lady who appeared to be supervising the ceremony – we were invited as a de facto relative to participate.
By now it was hitting around 10.45 so we moved to Ashok’s woman friends house (the lady whose husband was killed on Police duty) where around 11.30 breakfast was served - it’s difficult to know what is mealtime in the village.
We then packed up and we were brought to the Royal Tulip hotel and picked up again at 3.30 after showering and changing into more formal garb to drive the 50km to the groom’s village for his talik ceremony where the gifts Sapna received are presented to show the groom’s family that he will be well provided for
To be continued
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