Day Six – Connect and Tags
Connect: to join or fasten together, to associate or consider as related, to become joined or united.
In India, there are times of the year that are most auspicious for getting married. During these times, weddings happen 24 hours a day. This is known as “wedding season”.
Because of the traditions in North Indian Hindu weddings, the time of a wedding is determined by the availability of horses, the wedding venue and the musicians for the bridegroom’s procession known as the baraat parade.
The stated time for the ceremony is very loose because it’s dependent on many external factors – some outside the control of the wedding party.
What I understood to be outside the control of the wedding party is the time of the baraat parade. It starts at the bridegoom’s home when the horse and baraat band arrive, weary, from another baraat parade at another wedding.
The baraat parade can get very large, as the procession winds, slowly, to the wedding venue. The groom’s friends and family dance alongside him on horseback, with the band in front. The procession can get larger (and slower) as more people, presumably strangers, join in as the procession makes it’s way in the street.
I was told to be ready to travel to the wedding venue at 8pm. At the appointed time I received an SMS:
“Baraat parade not yet started”
It eventually got to the wedding venue at 11pm, when the ceremony took place.
The food was delicious, the wedding guests welcoming and friendly and the colours riotous. I loved every minute of this wedding.
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