Indian Wedding: Part II

Here is Part II of my brother's adventure in India.  (Part I HERE)
We went through a gate into a courtyard and found a small cage with a couple men inside.  From where I was standing I couldn’t really see what was going on and for a second I thought Satya was going to have to wrestle one of Anu’s family members to prove his manliness.  But as I got closer, I could see the cage was actually lined with hand-strewn flowers and a beautiful hand-made temple. 

Inside were the Hindu priests or pundits from both villages-Satya’s village brought four, and Anu’s one.  Satya was inside the temple for about 30 minutes as the pundits did prayers to all things in the natural world, vegetation, sky, earth, etc…After each prayer, Satya paid the pundits for praying.  This would prove to be the first of many prayers and rituals involving the pundits and an exchange of cash.

 
From here, we entered into another larger outdoor courtyard, with a large highly decorated stage.  At first glance I thought it was like a carnival or county fair environment with lots of blinking fluorescent lights.  But after I got a closer look it proved to be a truly amazing sight.  There was an awesome array of colors in pink, orange, green, teal blue and yellow. Everything was handmade with floral bouquets and hand strewn flower vines that went on for hundreds of feet.  It was truly the most magnificent sight I had seen.  The attention to detail was exquisite, it must have taken weeks to put the entire thing together.

From here, Satya was put on stage sitting in a chair that resembled a throne.  He was looking out at hundreds of chairs that were mainly empty as most people were eating at this point, including me.  His cousins led me into the next courtyard, which was probably nearly as big as a baseball field.  It was filled with about 600-700 people, and completely lined with food tables. 

Every type of Indian food dish was represented- I know because I ate every single one.  I had no choice- Indians are known for their hospitality and the farther distance you travel to the wedding, the more attention you get.  I got plenty off attention, maybe because I traveled 15,000 miles or maybe because I stood out like an apple in a barrel of oranges.  His cousins took me to every dinner table and loaded me up with food.  I probably had twenty plates, and literally had to tell them to stop bringing me food because I was going to explode. 

This led to a part of the ceremony that was pretty casual, people were mingling and walking back to watch Satya on stage.  This is where I made my biggest faux pas.  As we were walking back, I noticed Satya was onstage sitting in his throne.  In the throne next to him was somebody else with a crown who looked smaller and a lot younger.  Up to this point I had not seen Satya’s bride Anu, so I assumed the person next to him was Anu.  I admit I was a little confused, I was probably 60 yards away and had a difficult time with the overly bright lights so I wanted to confirm.  I asked Satya’s friend Vivek and several of his cousins if that was Satya’s bride?  They all broke out laughing, and thought it was very funny because the person sitting next to Satya was his 12 year old male cousin.  Apparently he sits there to keep Satya company or something. 

At this point I decided to wonder off and take it all in by myself for a while.