Tickling the Groom

by Kathy Nance (United States of America)

Making a local connection India

I told my friends it was wonderful, but I would never go back to India. The ever present pollution; four vehicles sharing two lanes going 110 kilometers per hour; piles of trash being poked through by cows, pigs and people; oppressive poverty juxtaposed with elaborate temples. I can still see the little boy holding a small child, rubbing his belly asking for food. We had been warned not to give to beggars. I had complied. I will always regret that decision. But my mind keeps going back to our host's masala tea, the warmth of the people, the cows wandering the streets, discovering that I love bathing by dipping from a bucket, trying to communicate with people despite our language difference, and especially the vibrant colors everywhere. I was beginning to get bored with my other travels. India was so different. Colorful, exotic, sad, busy, gentle, dirty, subservient, curious, crazy. On a cruise we had befriended a woman who insisted that we visit them in India. She and her parents live in England but own a house in rural India. They spend each winter there reconnecting with family and escaping the English cold. It was a small village 15 minutes by car from any amenities except an occasional pop up outdoor market. It was about 300 km. from Mumbai, where our tour would end. The trip was designed so we could cover the touristy things and get oriented to Indian culture and customs before visiting our friends. I treasure most the amazing colors and sounds and rituals of the two wedding parties we shared moments with. One was a large fancy wedding at a hotel where the tour spent a night. The groom was perched on a decorated white horse, being presented with a sword, later to enter on a painted elephant to greet his new bride. The highlight, however, was the pre-wedding ritual in our hosts' rural town. We had been formally invited by the groom and his father. No written invitations; everyone is personally invited to weddings, even if the number of guests is in the hundreds. We woke to chanting early the appointed morning. Our new friend, the groom's aunt, came to fetch us after my bucket bath. The whole outdoor area of the family's compound was covered with colorful banners, carpets, and overhead cloth, simulating large banquet rooms. When we approached there were over twenty women in bright saris chanting. Two photographers jockeyed to take our picture with various members of the groom's family. We were clearly a novelty! No one spoke English and we hadn't learned Gujarati. After masala tea we were escorted from the expansive front porch into a small room, now full of the chanting women squatting on the dirt floor. The groom's sister and aunt led a ritual to create what we surmised was a fertility stick, a thick four foot stalk of bamboo which was being adorned with leaves, ghee, rice, turmeric, and the red herb used by Hindus after prayer to signify focus on God, and in the case of marriage, strength and prosperity. Accompanied by the nonstop chanting, the stick was blessed and adorned with more leaves and rice from the pile on the floor before being installed in the new couple's bedroom next door. Then the groom was brought in and sat on a low stool for what we now know was a Haldi ceremony. As the chanting continued, the family performed this purification ritual They circled and blessed him and rubbed turmeric soaked oil all over his body, inadvertently tickling him, though he tried not to laugh. Later as he was showing us his henna-tattooed hands he picked rice off of the bottom of his feet and wiped at his face and hair, his yellow tunic and pants forever soaked with the turmeric oil. His fiance was undergoing the very same ritual in her home an hour away. They had matching tattoos of fancy hearts with his name on one hand and hers on the other. We left before the pre-wedding feast as we had been invited to have a meal with another neighboring family that day. More masala tea! Will I go back to India? Maybe!