Feeling the Love in Udaipur

I've been in Udaipur now about 5 days now and its been a different type of adventure than what I'm used to. This place has been filled with sightseeing, chilling on rooftops, and an amazing wedding. Udaipur is mainly known as the most romantic city in India for its floating palaces in the Pichola lake, the beautiful architecture of rose, cream, and honeysuckle, as well as being completely surrounded by mountains. Udaipur was initially put on the map from the James Bond film Octopussy. Every guesthouse here shows the movie at 7pm every night of the week. I feel so bad for them considering this is the single worse Bond flick ever.

So Piyush had taken me, to wedding a week ago but it was only to go there for eating and meeting his friends. This time I would experience a wedding in a different light. We started the day with the engagement party which was just eating, sitting around, and talking. At this party was where I got my nick name, Acha Gora, meaning the special white man. This seemed to fit since I was the only westerner at the party. All the women kept telling me I'm going to have to dance well at the wedding tonight. They were excited to see a white man dance like and Indian.

Later that evening we were to reconvene for the pre-wedding ceremony. Since I dont have any dress clothes, Pyuish brought me a silk Kurta which hung nearly to my knees. This along with the beard made me look like a true Muslim. Anyhow, the wedding begins with a large procession where the groom is marched through the streets. He is dressed in traditional wedding attire which consists of an elaborate turban, decorative robes, jewelry, and a golden sword. He mounts a horse and is guided through the streets by a massive crowd of people dancing in the streets while a band marches in front blaring wedding songs, traditional Rajasthani songs, and some bollywood hits. While we marched and danced, people are also setting off fireworks and spraying silly string and flowers all over each other. There was a lot of love in the air. I was constantly being pulled into the dancing pits with kids and the other men. In the US my dancing is shit but here in India its spot on. You just have to shake a lot and wave your hands. Just doing this make you look like a pro. At one point we got held up and a woman in the streets decided to get into the scene. She was probably around 65-70 years old and she was the best dancer we saw all night. This was where I took the opportunity to jump into her cleared circle and dance with her. Everyone got a good laugh and she was so blushing with embarrassment and happiness (I think). Along the way we even gathered a few more westerners to join the fun. This was great for me too because I had more people to talk to and now the Indian's had other people to stare at.

Once at the wedding grounds, the bride and groom go through some traditional rituals and then sit on a stage for hours while everyone comes up to take photos with them. After the photo's we feasted on all different types of curries, breads, and sweets. We all stood eating off of the same plates and feeding each other. By 12am I had had my fill and didn't want to stick around for next 4 hours of the official marriage. Slowly everyone but the immediate family drifted off and made their way back home.

It was an amazing night and I got to truly immerse myself in an amazing Indian tradition.