Indian Wedding Story: Part Two
Part one of this Indian wedding story can be found here.
The wedding ceremony took place in the evening, so Aditya and I were pretty free to do what we’d like the morning of the big day. His family had been planning the event all along - all we did was show up - so if there had there been any last minute catering disasters, for instance they were primed to take care of them. I was still a little jetlagged when I rolled out of bed, but figuring out how to operate the bucket-based showering system woke me up.
When I emerged dripping from the bathroom, Maa politely inquired whether I’d like to wear a sari, a salvar kameez, or whatever clothes I’d brought with me from the US. Now, as I’d never been to India before (and my inlaws refuse to purchase the high priced imported Indian clothes in the US), this was going to be my first time wearing Indian clothes. I decided to go all out, and start with a sari.
I remember that Maa was very pleased that I was willing to try out a sari. She gave me the petticoat and blouse with a big grin. Once I was in them, Bhabi, Aditya’s sister-in-law, came in to help me with the wrapping of the actual sari. Well, actually, I just stood there and rotated on command while she moved the fabric in mysterious ways and -poof- I was all dressed up! A few safety pins were added to keep everything in place.
The sari was actually much more comfortable and easy to wear than I had anticipated. It also made me feel quite elegant, as if I were a princess visiting a foreign country. That feeling was probably helped by the fact that everyone around was treating me like a princess! Saris are also pretty easy to put on, once you’ve had someone walk you through the process the first couple of times - at some point I’d like to put up step-by-step instructions (with photos) on how to wrap a sari. I only know how to do it the traditional Bengali way, but that’s one of the more popular versions. Do try to find someone to teach you in person, though - it’s much easier, and much more fun that way.
While I was getting all fancied up, Aditya went casual with his regular office attire of a shirt & jeans. 
Many women in India, even in the cities, wear traditional dress, most men (again, in the cities) wear western clothes daily. Aditya occasionally wears traditional Indian clothes to the office, but many men only wear traditional clothes for important events or ceremonies.
After a breakfast of something curried (potatoes and something lentil-ish, maybe?) with some roti, we headed to the community center where the wedding would be held. The two pictures above were taken there, as we chatted with various cousins and friends of the family who were there for the wedding while workers ran around putting up furniture and decorations for the evening. Aditya got in a bit of trouble with Maa for bringing me there, though: she wanted to keep me a bit secluded from others until the big event - create a sense of anticipation and mystique before the arrival of the bride for the ceremony, you know?
Anyways, I was perfectly willing to trade a little diminished anticipation for the priceless gift one cousin, Bappa-da, gave me.
In between his work on a legal briefing - he’s a lawyer on the Indian Supreme Court - he wrote out a complete family tree for Aditya’s mother’s side, including all the various aunts, uncles, cousins, and children I’d be running into during the next couple of days. He even labeled it with both the “good” names (aka the actual names) and the various nicknames of everyone, so that I’d know how to refer to people. Trust me, when you’re dealing with a large extended family, this sort of thing is worth more than a sack of gold doubloons.
After a little while, my mom, who was staying with friends of the family in the same compound, showed up in a very lovely (and BRIGHT!) salwar kameez she’d purchased in Delhi:
After maybe an hour of talking and watching the hall slowly transform into a wonderland, Maa arrived, scolded Aditya for showing me off too soon to the crowds, and then took us off to the same place my mom was staying at for some tea and resting time before lunch. I was perfectly happy with this plan. Between lingering jetlag and all the new experiences I was exhausted!
I’m afraid that I’ve given the impression so far that everything was super easy for me - it wasn’t. India was a completely eye-opening, changing experience for me, and just a morning of meeting new experiences, new people, new customs, new food (I love curries, but I’m not used to eating it for breakfast), new clothes, and even new plumbing was enough to tire me out. And the wedding hadn’t even started yet!
Luckily Maa (and my mom) completely understood, so we had a bit of a timeout while I hung out with my mom and uncle, heard about their adventures so far in India, and drank a bit of tea before lunch.
Part Three, where lunch is eaten and a certain Gori gets all prepared, can be found here.
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Comments
hmmm bucket based showering system. hmmm. I’ve also heard there are non-western style toliets and I’m not even sure what that means. I have no clue!! I guess at some point it would be great to hear people’s experiences with things in India that are completely “foreign” (hehe, literally) to Americans… 
Btw.. I love the Sari! I’ve never tried one… I just get a Kurta (Kurti?) everytime my friends come back from india so I have quite a few. Also I have a Salvar Kameez!
Everyone looks so cute! Somebody is good at taking pictures, too, the light & colors are all just right.
I swear Gori, you got the regal, elegant Indian woman thing DOWN. Just beautiful.
Hey D, where is your dude from? I hope you comment more over here, I think in a similar way as you in terms of tolerance and openness. I’m newer in my relationship though, and it always helps to hear more stories how it works out down the line from the more open, accepting people
GG, You look great. With the long dark hair,the bindi and everything you could almost pass for a Bengali ;).
What a beautiful sari, GG! And that’s great that your Mom wore a salwar kameez!
I’m in process of trying to help my mom and grandmother pick out a sari to wear to my wedding. I’m being kind of selfish and trying to convince them to buy ones that I really like so that I can steal them from them afterwards! I have to admit, I love getting dressed up in saris - I actually just took my bridesmaids sari shopping and I wasn’t quite sure how they would react to wearing one, but they all seemed to love it - it’s not hard to feel elegant in one - especially when other people do all the wrapping for you.
Anyway, if you guys get a chance, you should check out this YouTube video. It was made by an Indian woman and celebrates non-Indian women wearing saris. I think it’s very sweet:
Thanks to everyone for the compliments on the sari, but I can’t take any credit for my look (other than the typically crazy hair, and the shadows under my eyes - should’ve used more concealer to battle the jetlag look ). Maa and Bhabi (and maybe some cousins) were the ones responsible for picking out all my clothes and jewelry, and they did a fabulous job!
@ G - the waving from the balcony thing seems like something I would do too! I haven’t yet tried to wear my wedding sari again, nor the reception sari (which is made out of the same sort of gauzy sheer stuff you mention), so I have no idea how hard it’ll be to get all the pleats right - although the experts at the salon I went to to have my hair & clothes done had a lot of trouble with the reception sari, so I’m a bit fearful. (Oh, and Aditya still helps me with my pleats, but he helped Maa too when he was a boy, so I don’t feel that bad about it)
@ Pale_Desi: the house had a (mostly) regular shower system too, but it wasn’t working at the time. All of the places I stayed at had Western-style toilets, but the train just had a room with basically a hole which you squatted over - guess it adds fertilizer to the train tracks. I chose to hold it in rather than attempt that balancing act on a moving train! (Generally, the non-western toilets in India are like ceramic basins built into the ground that you squat over, then flush like normal. You can find out more here.)
@ galaxie: one of Aditya’s cousins is a photographer - these are mostly his pictures featured here.
@ JustDroppedBy: thanks for dropping by (and your comment)! 
A number of the guests at the wedding were asking both my mom and myself what ethnicity my parents were, ’cause they thought I looked somewhat Indian (especially in all the wedding attire). Aditya says it’s just ’cause they expect all white people to have blond hair. 
@ CaliforniaTransplant: Heh - I stole the sari my mom wore to the wedding! She kept her salwar kameez though - she really likes it and the Indian blouses she purchased while traveling. And that’s a GREAT video. And to everyone else - the video also links to clips showing how to wrap a sari.
@ lineage 3 forum: Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
NK - My guy was born and raised here in the northeastern U.S. His dad came here for grad school, and his mom followed his dad here. They’ve been here since the early-mid ’70’s. Ethnically, his peeps are originally from the Goa area, although no one in his family has lived there for a long long time. And don’t worry; I’ll stick around here.
CT - My bridesmaids also wore saris for the Indian ceremony. They changed into bridesmaid dresses for the non-denominational ceremony (and I changed into a wedding dress — although my dress was the red and white one from all of the Alfred Angelo ads, so I got a little bit of Indian flavor into it). They were all very excited about the saris. I couldn’t get my mom and grandmother into Indian clothes, though. We borrowed the saris for my bridesmaids from my MIL and a bunch of the aunties, so unfortunately, there weren’t any for me to steal afterward. I’m going to be making some purchases when we go to India, which will hopefully be this January.
GG - At first, I thought that pic of you was Aditya’s sister or something. You’re not quite as “gori” as you claim to be! 
hahaha, when i was in pakistan to visit relatives, i totally used the hole in the train bathroom. I really had to go!
love the pics and blog!
Gori girl, why are you displaying your life in public like this? Every white girl who marries an Indian man has few screws loose! What insanity! No wonder no white man wanted you!
Note by Gori/the Admin: This guy spammed a few posts (as Amit Khanna & Akshay) with insults, and I deleted those comments. Generally, I don’t care if you dislike me or my opinions, and saying so in the comments won’t get them automatically deleted. If you’ve got something to add, even if you’re less than tactful about it, that’s cool. However, straight-up insults that don’t add to the conversation at all will get deleted. I suppose this comment, with its, um, detailed analysis of why a white person might marry an Indian, constitutes “adding to the conversation,” so I’m leaving it up. Also, it greatly amuses me.
Wow, I’m so glad that now I truly know why I married my husband. Not because I love him, but because I’m nuts. (Actually, people who have actually met us would say that he’s the crazy one in the relationship.)
Thanks for the laugh, GG!
A lot of white women who marries an Indian men is crazy, mentally insane…they love to display their private lives on the internet, is there a “normal” white woman interested in Indian man? Gorigirl, u r nuts, i support interracial marriage, but you are crazy!
To Aditya, the idiot
*** ***** BENGALI, tere ko gori mem mil gayi, tu apne aap ko “badshah” samajh raha hay! *** ***** **, tu kalla hai, aur kalla hee rahega
edited for abusive content
Mr Aditya,the duffer, where did u meet this lune? She is washing her dirty linen in public, dont u have any shame man? r u indian? U whitewashed indian man, u letting ur wife expose ur private life shamelessly? I met few gori lunes like these in college too, i ran away as fast as i could! U idiot bengali, have some self-respect!
Welcome back, Amit. To address some of your concerns: I’ve never been tested as mentally incompetent, or otherwise deranged, and I have worked with some psychologists & neurologist before. You’d think they’d say something, or have me committed. I even got a nice video of my brain activity during one internship! It showed that I was probably dyslexic, but otherwise okay. I can’t speak for other women who are married to Indian men, but I’m not sure why there’d be a higher level of “craziness” in that group than in any other.
I’m not displaying my private life on the internet just for kicks, but rather to give support & advice for other people, men and women, who happen to be in intercultural relationships. For instance, there are a few women here planning an Indian wedding with their significant others, and I hope my story can help them learn a bit more about Indian weddings, and perhaps give ideas for their own.
My in-laws (Aditya’s family) are quite aware of this blog, and like it very much. If you poke around, you’ll probably see comments from them. So it’s not like I’m talking about them behind their back or anything like that. If they’re comfortable about what I say about the family, then I don’t see why you or anyone else should have concerns. In the end, we all have different levels of comfort about privacy on the internet. I completely understand if you wouldn’t be as comfortable sharing this much information on the Net. Anyways, I’m glad to hear that you support interracial marriage, generally!
By the way, no insults in Hindi either! If you want to add to the conversation (preferably in a polite tone), that’s fine, but insults for the sake of insults will be deleted or edited (like that one was).
I’m sure Aditya will be along sooner or later to defend himself, but I do want to say that I doubt he could be considered “white-washed.” He’s only been in the US for, um, about six years - despite my best efforts he’s only turned a “coffee with milk” tone so far! And he keeps playing cricket on the weekends, which totally ruins my work at white-washing, and brings him right back to medium brown color! (/sarcasm) Actually, he’s sporting a rockin’ farmer’s tan right now - I should take pictures.
Finally, good catch on the Mexican bit! I’m actually one quarter Mexican (mother’s father), and it sometimes shows - especially when I have a tan. I also have some Native American blood in me. You can read more about the whole white/Mexican/am I really a gori? issue at my post Why the Gori of Gori Girl, where I explain why I chose the address of gorigirl.com despite not being a full-blown Western European chick.
So you are not a gori, u r a mixed mexican/native american, stop callling yourself a gori, when u r not
Well, I’m only one-quarter Mexican, and probably not even 1/16th Native American - the rest is a random Western European mixture, with heavy doses of French, English, and German heritages. If I’m only given one option on forms, I choose white/caucasian, and I self-identify as white to strangers. Most people, when asked, would say I’m white. Also, I get super, super pale in the winter. So I feel pretty comfortable calling myself “gori”. If you don’t like it, you’re free to swim elsewhere in the great World Wide Web, of course.
Oh, and I’m very happy/proud of being a “mixed mongrel mutt”, as are a lot of Americans. It comes with being a nation of immigrants - “interbreeding” happens.
Yeah… I can’t defend myself since I’m guilty as charged.
Thanks for opening my eyes to the truth Amit… if it weren’t for your irrational and abusive comments, I never would have realized how ugly / non-gori GG really is.
Also, thanks to Amit’s insightful “to kalla hai kalla hi rahega” [you’re black, and will remain black], I am forced to own up the fact that I am, indeed, black…
Though - I’m not quite sure why the word “gori” would necessitate a “white” person… when i took Hindi in middle school, i was only told that it means “fair”…
Amit, I’d appreciate a hindi lesson here.
Also, I’m surprised that you’ve been able to keep such a good command over Hindi “galis” in Texas… I can’t imagine finding too many people speaking Hindi there…
Amit -
You should take a look at this site too:
http://colorblindcupid.wordpress.com/category/in-laws/
Wow, who would’ve thought that a nice story like Gori Girl and Aditya’s would inspire such vitriol? Amit, have you seen the number of people who have posted on this site thanking Gori for sharing her story and giving advice? She’s providing a much-needed service here for people who have questions about how to navigate their way through an intercultural relationship. When I had questions earlier in my relationship, I would have been glad to find sites like these. But alas, that was a long time ago and I had to go through it on my own. Now that I’m more of an old hand at integrating into an Indian family, I’m glad to throw in my $0.02 to help others who are in similar circumstances.
instantkarma, even though you’re redirecting to CBC, this guy’s comments aren’t going to get past the spam filter and comment approval process there.
Oh, and the “real gori” thing made me laugh. I guess that’s one positive in the ugly bigotry displayed here.
…and I see that GG has wisely deleted all of that nonsense. Sorry if my previous post doesn’t make much sense now!
No worries, D. I’m in the middle of writing a quick post about this craziness. Thanks for standing up for me, though.
Ignore this puerile idiot, Amit/Akshay. Seems like a troll. Probably missed taking his antacids in the morning.
Wow, the intellect displayed by “Mr. Khanna” was absolutely staggering…
Somehow I get the impression he’s a pathetic, middle-aged Desi bachelor still living in his mother’s basement, and he’d be damn lucky if any “gori” (or any woman of any shade, for that matter) would ever look twice at him. Good riddance!
Hi Akshay/Amit
For your info there are a lot of indian women who have their blogs and who blog about their culture and family. So keep off the attacks. you are just jealous bcos these two seem so much in love. Kudos to GG and Aditya.
U go girl
I’m speechless… I (along with my fiancee) have been following your blog for a while and we’ve loved every bit of it. Not only how intelligent and beautiful but also how rational and even-handed you are in all your posts (we often talk about you and wonder if that’s just how you come off in your posts or if you’re truly as equitable and sensible all the time in real life). And we’ve always appreciated how you’ve opened up so much of your life and your thoughts; it’s never easy to leave oneself vulnerable like that. Sadly, this moron seems to have taken advantage of just that vulnerability, mistaking it for weakness when it’s really strength: strength of character and soul in connecting with others despite the prospect of idiots like that. Sometimes, I’m truly ashamed of our human race when I see the antics of some moron like this; but then, seeing people like you, willing to continue to connect with others gives hope once again. And maybe this guy is just some frustrated kid who, one day, will grow by such examples of almost Gandhian interaction. Kudos to you, gori girl, and to your lovely family for not giving up on the rest of us and turning off the blog. If I may add one suggestion, though, I’d highly recommend archiving and then deleting all entries/responses by this character: he really doesn’t deserve the amazing civil and cordial responses he’s received and his comments add nothing to the conversation, in my opinion, at least (except perhaps to highlight your incredible patience and accommodation!).
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Great pictures! Can’t wait to read the rest!
My wedding was here, but my also MIL scolded me for being seen by too many people before the ceremony. G and I were taking pictures on a balcony above the hotel lobby and ended up waving and yelling to everyone as they entered.
I’ve worn a sari a bunch of times, but I still can’t figure out how to dress myself properly. It’s hard for me to practice, too, because the only two saris I have are my heavy silk wedding one (which is a lot to handle) and a gauzy sheer one (which doesn’t pleat easily). Luckily, MIL doesn’t mind helping — she’s excited to have a daughter after raising two sons. She even tries to help dress me when I’m wearing a lengha choli or a salwar kameez. I usually let her drape my chunni so she feels needed. Plus, I know she’s going to want to fuss with it if I do it, so it’s easier to let her do it in the first place.