Sujana weds Pavan - prenuptial dinner

Our flight to Chennai was at 5am, so we had to leave for the airport without going to bed. There are different airport rules here, when flying internally. Neither of us were terribly awake to deal with them, so I thought I'd enlighten you here, in case you should have to do internal flights in India. General/common liquids aren't a big deal, but pat downs are. You and your bags go through several levels of security. You must pick up a tag from the airline which is attached to all of your carry on items. There is no sign to tell you this, only a guard at security who tell you that you must have a tag, but can't really elaborate in any language you understand. Other items of interest: you are called by flight number as to when you may go through security, then it's a mad dash and quite a queue. You may or may not have a gate number when you arrive at the airport, check-in, check your baggage, or even after sitting for 45 minutes. There are separate security lines for men and women. You put your baggage on the xray conveyor, then proceed to go through the metal detector/pat down/wanding. (Women are patted down and wanded behind curtains.) All of the security people are military. There are assault rifles everywhere. I find this both reassuring and disconcerting all at once. We flew IndiGO air, which is a 2 year old domestic Indian carrier. Very nice people, clean planes and pleasant flights. g We arrived in Chennai, bleary-eyed, as it's only a 90 min. flight. We were met by Pavan's friend and former co-worker, Eswar, and a driver whom we had for our whole trip. The driver only spoke a little English, though he understood a good deal more from his expressions. Tirupati, where the wedding would take place, is about a 3 hour drive from Chennai. We drove through parts of Chennai, and could really tell that Pune just doesn't have infrastructure in place at the rate it's growing. It seems to be consensus that it will be a fabulous city in 10 years. Even the parts that seem poorer in Chennai and Mumbai seemed more organized than parts of Pune. My thoughts are that it's an evolving city, evolving economy, evolving country, so you have to cut them some slack. There's still a lot of beauty here, in this ancient culture - amazing architecture, graceful and gracious people, astonishing cuisine, a huge range of cultural differences and a level of happiness and tolerance that Americans can certainly learn from. g So, driving from Chennai to Mumbai: There is no part of any of the driving that I would want to take without an experienced driver. For the most part, the roads are very good. Our drive winds us through Tamil Nadu into Andra Pradesh. It was kind of astounding to see so many cultural differences even from the car! Men wear these fabric swaths around their waist. It's either worn long or folded up to be short. They wear them everywhere - city and country. I don't know if it's customary, but occasionally they do need to be re-wrapped and I got flashed a couple of times in the process. This was more on the road, than in the city, though. Some are just white/cream fabric, most are bright colored plaids. Of course, the Brits named Chennai, Madras, so the plaids makes sense. g As we passed from Tamil Nadu into Andra Pradesh (state names) we crossed into rocky country -- somewhat mountainous with interesting rock formations. I took a lot of pix from the moving car and hope they turned out decently. We passed a lot of farm land and rock quarries. The farming was either very much by hand with cows and people or by the farming machines we're so used to seeing in Nebraska. We did pass a corn field, though went by too quickly for photos of corn and palm trees. Women in the field again astonish as they gracefully work the cow-driven plows in a sari. They always look like they're going to a beautiful party in the bright colors and patterns, their hair in a thick braid or tied in a bun and draped with chains of jasmine blossoms. g We arrived in Tirupati, at the hotel that Pavan had chosen for us, Hotel Bliss. This was an older hotel, we suspect, but couldn't confirm. The doorman had an elaborate costume and there was some amazing marble and decor in the lobby and portico. We got settled in and before crashing called Pavan to find out what was going on. He and his father came to inspect the room and give us a run down on the events. It turned out that the marriage blessing at Tirumala (the famous temple) was going to be later in the day, around 4pm, and we'd have to make the 3 hour trip to Chennai, so they had arranged for us to go with two of his father's work colleagues. For the day though, they ordered us room service, approved my outfits (they said it was too hot for anyone to care) and told us to nap until 8pm when the driver would collect us and take us to the party. We didn't have to be told twice to take a nap. g Since Tirupati is a pilgrimmage city, there are a lot of weddings that take place here. There are halls that lend themselves to large groups of people - one room for ceremony/reception with two stages (one for bride and groom, one for the band), two rooms off to the side of that main room - one for groom, one for bride (there's clothing changes involved in the ceremonies), a large cafeteria style room with long, steel tables with chairs attached, a kitchen adjacent to that, a room with a wall of faucets for washing hands, and a sort of large entry way that connects them all. There must have been restrooms, but we didn't find need of them. Ceiling fans cover a good portion of the ceiling. Everyone was very sweaty in no time, and I understood Pavan and his father saying no one would care. Eshwar told us that there are very few of these places that have a/c and the ones that do are very expensive. Outside the hall, they had constructed a wide entryway with gold panels and images of some Hindu deities (Ganesh, for one). Outside, billboards and signs above the entryway proclaimed, "Sujana weds Pavan." g Clearly waiting for our arrival, which was at 8:01, due to traffic heading to the hall, Pavan had called to see where we were. We were greeted with paparazzi, along with Pavan's father. It was a little surreal! We were lead up to Pavan and Sujana, all decked out on the stage and getting ready to hold court as well wishers had their photo taken with them and wished them well. They also gave them gifts at that time. A live band was playing traditional Southern Indian music - with both a male and female singer. They were fun, but loud. Pavan introduced us to his good friend, whose name escapes me as I write this, but who was lovely and introduced us to people and told us what was going on. We met Pavan's mother, sister (who will be moving to the US soon) and nieces (adorable). There were several children there who found me and Dan fascinating. One had on a shirt that said "Portland" on it, and Dan told him about Portland, OR, because we'd been there. One little boy asked if he had a dollar he could see. I didn't hear the question, or I'd have given him one. Dan said that he wasn't begging though, just asking to see it. g There was a short ceremony when the family presents gifts of food, saris, nuts, fruits, prasad (blessed food/sweet) to the bride. It was quite a procession! At one point after the presentation of things that will care for the bride, Sujana left and changed into one of the gifted saris and then the family stuffs the folds of the sari with nuts and fruits. I'm guessing this is a fertility blessing. Most of this ritual was carried out by the women. g I suppose the best way to describe this first evening was a prenuptial dinner, with some wedding gift giving and many photos. In Southern India, the dinner is an interesting thing. It's served on a banana leaf and eaten with fingers. We ate with a group of Pavan's friends, who were all so wonderful to hang out with us. Pavan had tried to anticipate our every need and had place settings for us with silverware and plates. He was quite impressed with us when he found that we ate with our fingers for the most part! (We'd been practicing.) The wedding dinner had some elaborate sweets, one of which is covered in vark (edible silver leaf). The sweets are eaten first at a wedding dinner to ensure a sweet start to married life. g Shortly after dinner, we went back to the hotel and crashed. The next morning was the wedding ceremony and the blessing of the marriage at Tirumala, the pilgrimmage temple and richest church in the world - rivaling the Vatican. The exact time of the blessing is deterimined by Jyotish (Ayurvedic astrology) and Pavan had wanted us to go with them to Tirumala for that, but our flight times conflicted, so he and his father arranged for us to go before the wedding ceremony with two of his father's work colleagues. The 4am departure would greet us all too soon, considering that we'd only had about 3 hours of sleep in the past day and a half!