India - days 1 & 2

December 19 - day 1
After 24 hours of traveling and questionable ramen in Hong Kong's airport, we finally made it to Bangalore. My luggage did not. I'd been warned about a handful of things (the aromas, traffic peculiarities, the crowds, and the general lack of efficiency throughout the country), but was utterly unprepared to have my lost baggage information written down -by hand!- in a ledger book from the 1960s. Nothing imparts confidence that you'll ever see your belongings again like carbon paper...

We left the airport one bag light and headed to Jai's via cab, where we crashed hard (ahhh, sleeping in a horizontal postion!) for a few hours before taking in our first real view of the city. A lunch that I'll pine for over the next ten years and a quick trip to the mall to replace the sweats I'd been rocking for forty straight hours with jeans left me feeling a bit closer to human.

Thanks to some local legislation changes, bars/pubs in Bangalore now close promptly at 11.30p. Now imagine a group of US-kids used to the American late-night scene in that scenario: napping until 8p, taking our sweet time getting dressed, and enjoying a few cocktails before heading out gave us only about 14 minutes at the bar. Whoops. Early bar closure does not mean that the fun ends...cue the house party, a hugely common occurance in B-town. Since our 'serviced apartment' was more like a hotel suite with three huge rooms, a common area and a kitchen, we were dubbed as the hosts of the after-party. Lucky us. Between guests (unknown to anyone else in attendance - ack!) ransacking the fridge/pantry and all the indoor smoking, our party was short-lived and another party was quickly started elsewhere.

December 20 - day 2
We started Sunday with one of the wedding customs I was most pumped about: the mehndi party. And guess who got her bag arrived just in time?! This girl! I'll get right to the pics...

en route, with nekkid hands pre-mehndi

the process took no longer than 12 minutes...both hands, both sides.

finished product

since the mehndi needs to dry (and gets darker the longer you let it marinate), the girls were waited on hand-and-foot (get it - hand?!)

and the boys got a lil ink too

The purpose of the mehndi is for the bride to get bedecked from hand to elbow and toe to knee to show the world that she's off the market and to teach her to be an auspicious wife. At one point in the day, the groom's mother and her posse arrive to present the bride with a ceremonial veil edged in gold thread which welcomes her to the family and to married life:
After a nap and shower, we got into our Indian garb for the sangeet...saris for the girls and kurtas for the boys (more commonly known in our circle as ninja pajama). A sari is literally seven yards of silk, which must be wrapped/pleated/tucked a certain way...

my moment as Cinderella, with my little bluebirds dressing me
(Satana on the left and Nasha on the right)

fellow T-Birds Erin, Chris/Cheese, me, Rob, Sauv

While I wouldn't say they're uncomfortable, a sari certainly takes some getting used to. The fact that I wore my little blouse-y top backward the first night probably didn't help... Walking like a penguin and hoisting 21 feet of fabric over my head to pee was an adventure, indeed. Did I feel fantastic and super-cultural wearing it?! You bet your ninja pajama I did.

The story behind the sangeet is that it used to be the first time the families of the bride and groom really met (since fathers used to negotiate the marriages with no other party present), and the dowry would be settled. With time, it has evolved into a fantastic excuse for food, drink, color and dancing. At a sangeet, you are either at the bar...or on the dancefloor. You eat in between. While dancing. Then you have a drink. And dance some more...and then there's more dancing. And some more food. And a lot more booze.

The bus hired to take us to the sangeet took a wrong turn or nine, so our 20-minute trip took 2.5 hours. Boo. Luckily, nothing in India ever starts on time, so we didn't miss much.

Chris/Cheese, Jai (the groom!), Rob, Matt, Sauv

Ami, Nirmal (the bride!), Tracy, Erin, me

Rob & Jai

my view for the evening

I'm a really good dancer in India, you know. My tactic: just shake my arms like a wacko to make as much sound as humanly possible with my bangle bracelets.

(for the record, the colors in real life are even more vivid and saturated than these pics could ever justify. *little sigh*)