Tag Archive | "wedding"

My Immigrant Husband Is Now Free to Divorce Me!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

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A phone conversation from last night: Aditya: Hey, guess what came in the mail today? GG, at the office, as always: How are you home already? Don't you work? ... And, yeah, so what came in the mail? Aditya: News from the Department of Homeland Security.

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Indian Wedding Story, Part Six

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

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This is Part Six of a continuing series on my Indian wedding adventure. If you’re new to Gori Girl, try checking out Part One, where the story starts. After we started the fire (think Agni Pradipan, not Billy Joel), I fed Aditya some pre-made Laddu, which is a common Indian sweet used in pujas and other ceremonies. After this Aditya stood up and promised to provide for me for the rest of my life, so, really, I didn't begrudge him the sweet. (Also: it was way too hot to do much but sweat beside that fire. Doesn't look like it? Read on.)

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From Atheist to Hindu? Religion and My Intercultural Marriage

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

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Me? Oh, well, I don't have a faith. And, no, I'm not interested in getting one either. That was my polite non-answer when asked about my religious beliefs by two Christians who stopped by Aditya's and my doorstop to proselytize last weekend. And it was as true, as far as it goes - I'm not one much for simple faith in any context. When discussing my religious beliefs with friends & family, I'm most likely to to describe myself simply as an atheist. But when I'm feeling a little mischievous - or argumentative - I'll sometimes put in that I'm an atheist - and a Hindu. Yeah, it's a bit of a complicated situation; I blame Aditya for it completely. Like many other things in my life, religion is something that has become more complicated since we set off on our intercultural marriage adventure.

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Wearing Sindoor as a White Woman

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

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Aditya loves, loves, loves it when I wear sindoor. For him it is the epitome of beauty. (There's also probably an element of husbandly pride and maybe something oedipal going on, but, hey, you can't win them all.) When I reach over to open to the medicine cabinet while brushing my teeth in the mornings, his face lights up in the hope that I'm grabbing out my container of vermilion powder: "Are you going to wear sindoor today?" You should! - you look so beautiful when you wear it!" And, almost always, I mumble something that amounts to "no, not today."

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Indian Wedding Story, Part Five

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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This is Part Five of a continuing series on my Indian wedding adventure. If you’re new to Gori Girl, try checking out Part One, where the story starts. When I left off on the story of my Arya Samaj wedding to Aditya (see part four here), we had just exchanged garlands at the start of our wedding ceremony. Heavy, massive garlands that took my original concept of flower necklaces - Hawaiin leis - and kicked it up a notch or ten.

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Like a Wheel in Motion: My Second Indian Wedding

Monday, August 25, 2008

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NeoKalypso, my wonderful guest contributer, tells of her experiences at a friend's wedding. After a wonderful summer full of jungle hikes, tasty SE Asia food, and plenty of other adventures with R, I was blessed to top it all off in the most perfect way with my friend CT’s weddingYep, that’s right, our very own CaliforniaTransplant and I are friends in real life. After sharing so many similar perspectives on intercultural relationships we decided we had to meet. Our friendship blossomed and I volunteered to help her in any way I could on the day of her Gujurati Indian wedding ceremony. She took me up on it, sent me about a two page “script” and I was ready to help! From there…magic unfolded. The gods graced us with their presence…

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Indian Wedding Story: Part Four

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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This is Part Four of a continuing series on my Indian wedding adventure. If you're new to Gori Girl, try checking out Part One, where the story starts. When I last left off on the story of our wedding in India (see part three), I had just arrived, as the picture above shows. The lovely lady trailing behind me is a friend of the family (and Aditya's childhood math tutor), who'd been helping me with all the preparations - it was like she was an older aunt of mine for the day. There were flowers ALL OVER the place as I arrived - from where the car dropped me off to the second floor hall where the ceremony would be, I was surrounded by sheets of flowers, while walking under flower arches (spelling Aditya's and my names in flowers) and over a red carpet, just like you see at movie premiers. Of course, the only person who took pictures of this wonder was my uncle, who, of course, has not yet gotten around to sending me his photos.

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Any Intercultural Couples Interested in Sharing their Wedding Adventures?

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

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Hey guys - I recently came into contact with a woman in an intercultural relationship who became fed up with the lack of resources for intercultural couples trying to navigate thorny cross-cultural wedding issues. So she's decided to fill the gap herself by writing a book on the subject (yay for initiative!). She's looking to interview any sort of intercultural couple who are willing to share the story of their intercultural wedding, or are currently in the midst of planning such a wedding:

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A Cougar in the Backyard: Dispatches from My First Indian Wedding

Friday, May 2, 2008

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In this guest post, NeoKalypso of Doings & Undoings give us her thoughts on the first Indian wedding she attended. Igniting the fear and fascination of city dwellers, a cougar recently turned up roaming around my highly metropolitan area. The cat was a fairly big dude, about 5 feet in length 150lbs, and eventually made its way into the tiny backyard of a resident who described seeing the animal roam by his window as “surreal.” When the police came they tried to contain the beast, but when it lunged at a policeman it was shot and killed. Turns out, shooting the cougar was really the only option given how ill fitted the city is for large, wild animals. The cougar could have killed someone, and there was no easy access to vets or tranquilizers to entertain any other safe idea. This is an example of an ecotone: when two different ecosystems collide and cause tension. The cougar and the city dwellers were just doing what they knew to survive, unfortunately both could not survive together. Fortunately, I made it out of my first Indian wedding alive, and though my experience isn’t as dramatic as the poor cougar’s fate, I certainly felt out of my element. After having traveled plenty of strange places, visiting Buddhist Mongolian homes, sleeping in $3 hostels, and not to mention my general love for Indian culture, one would think I could handle any kind of situation, any kind of pressure… right? In almost any other contexts and as a seasoned, brave explorer, I think I would have found The Indian Wedding a smörgåsbord of fascination and wonder. However, let me tell you, The Indian Wedding is a much different experience when you are dating one of their own.

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Indian Wedding Story: Part Three

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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This is Part Three of a continuing series on my Indian wedding adventure. If you're new to Gori Girl, try checking out Part One and Part Two. Lunchtime! Tomorrow the real wedding pictures start, but today was super hectic, so you'll be getting the pictures from the lunch before the big night, and the story of bridal preparation and nerves. After our pre-lunch siesta, everyone returned to the community center where the wedding ceremony would be held for lunch. All I can say is yum - the caterers were very, very good!

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Indian Wedding Story: Part Two

Thursday, April 17, 2008

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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.

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Indian Wedding Story: Part One

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

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I've mentioned previously that Aditya and I recently had our Hindu wedding ceremony in India, and I've been meaning to write a post or two (or a hundred) about my experiences in India. And then a reader mentioned that she liked the pictures of the wedding that are sprinkled around the GoriGirl site, and would be interested in seeing more of them. So I thought I'd combine these two ideas and post a couple of pictures each day, working through the story chronologically. We'll start off with our arrival in Calcutta (also known as Kolkata - but I'll go with my inlaw's usage), where the wedding took place.

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My Dainty Swastikas

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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Someone gave me a pair of swastikas as a wedding gift. They were quite beautiful: delicate, pure gold swastika earrings, with subtle etchings along the front and edges. I wish I had taken a picture of them – and of my husband’s face when he opened the gift. I still don’t know who the giver was, but I suspect it was an older Auntie with superb taste and very few NRI relatives.

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Christmas Wedding Gifts

Monday, March 10, 2008

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Indians rock at the wedding gift-giving thing. In fact, I think the Indian version of giving wedding presents is far superior to the typical American way. This belief of mine is based on the one Indian wedding I’ve attended – my own – so it’s not exactly statistically sound. But I think my experience is enlightening, nonetheless, and I’m told it’s fairly typical. Last Christmas, exactly a year and four days after our civil ceremony in the US, Aditya and I had our Hindu wedding in India. The date was picked for a combination of reasons: it was auspicious according to the astrologer Maa (Aditya’s mother) consulted; the weather in Calcutta would be near perfect for anyone not from Calcutta; and, most importantly, the groom and I could get time off of our jobs in D.C. to fly halfway around the world. Of course, the timing also meant that I couldn’t spend the holidays with my culturally-Christian family in California, exchanging gift cards (Best Buy for Aditya, Borders for me), and watching various younger cousins, nieces, and nephews play with the cardboard boxes their toys came in. Still, I consented to go to India. We get out to the West Coast every season anyways, and I was told there’d be presents for me in India. (Sure, it also meant I could finally meet Aditya’s sister and his extended family, perform important Hindu marriage rites, see his homeland, etc, etc, whatever – today’s focus is on presents.) Shall I start with the reasons why Indian wedding gifts are excellent?

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