Miryalaguda Wedding

We were invited to attend the wedding of Sudha's (she is the wife of Dr. Sharma) nephew in the town of Miryalaguda, which is about 150 km to the south of Hyderabad. Indian marriage ceremonies are legendary for the extent to which ritual and tradition play an elaborate part. We traveled to Hyderabad from our home in an auto rickshaw, which took about one hour in the heavy afternoon traffic, and arrived at the home of Dr. Sharma's sister and brother-in-law where Evan did his part to disturb the calm (he launched a plastic bowling pin from the top of the stairs into some dinner plates).

A bus had been chartered to take the groom and his party from Hyderabad into the countryside where we would meet the family of the bride. The "village" (population 200,000) of Miryalaguda is the home of the bride and is traditionally where all the festivitities will take place. She is residing with her parents there, but will be returning in about two days time with the exhausted groom and his party. It is custom for the groom to return with his bride back to his family's home before sunrise on the day after the cermony is complete. We barely made it...

The ceremony was conducted in two parts - the first of which was short and sweet on Saturday evening. Upon arriving by bus, the bride's family greeted us at the door (actually, the parents of the bride came on the bus to bless us and adorn us with the first of many tikkas) and feed us after our long journey of heavy monsoon rains accented by traditional Indian songs. The accompanying music was fantastic - an interesting double percussion "tabla" is played with a a pair of sticks, and a variation of a clarinet - a long, slender, reeded woodwind.

The Saturday evening ceremony was capped by a traditional coming together of the two families in which the bride and groom faced each other while surrounded by their families. They then proceeded to beckon the other to step forward, attempting to get the other one to move first in an interesting game of chicken. I have attempted to capture some of this on the video below. This was of course followed by a huge south Indian meal consisting of dal (spiced lentils), chutneys (mango, coconut), idli (rice flour cakes), vada (deep fried donut-shaped rings made from rice flour), and samba (sauce-like tomato and onion mixture).

On Sunday the real ceremony began. The puja (prayer ceremonies) began in earnest in the afternoon. Offerings and blessings were made in what seemed like thousands of different ways - each with the choreographed assistance of elders and brahmen as well as family who provided ample supply of various leafs, seeds, powders, pastes, flowers, incense, fruit, nuts, ornaments, or any other natural object necessary for puja. There were small fires for promises made to the fire god that was managed with a large beetle leaf. It was really something to see.

The final "tying of the knot" occured somewhere around 11PM - this is the actual tying of a large cermonial necklace around the bride by the groom and vice versa. This was preceeded by the bride being carried out to the groom in a large wicker basket by her uncles as well as the washing of the feet of the groom by the parents of the bride. There was a lot of symbology to represent the passing of responsibility from the parents to the groom's family.

Before your nerves twitch about eastern notions of gender equality, you should know that I have found Indian women to be exceptionally well educated and confident about sharing ideas in the public domain. In most ways they are as liberated as the western counterparts, and in some ways, more so!

Afterwards there was a large meal and then - more puja. And then - more puja. Did I mention - more puja. At about 6AM the puja was completed (I had to work this morning at 8:30) and we boarded the bus back to Hyderabad. The room was strewn with sleeping bodies from a long night's worth of puja. But it was worth every minute.

SEE THE MIRYALAGUDA SLIDESHOW BY CLICKING HERE!