A traditional Indian village wedding

Wow. Last night certainly was an experience. Remember how on the first day of the assignment, Tyler, Anika and I went and visited the Dewas village to better understand what our NGO did? Well, let me remind you anyway. This was the village where we visited the successful farming land that has had assistance from Hemal and Concept Society:

The main farmer is in the middle here, (the one with the white beard). Very impressive man.

Here are some other photos of the farm house on this land:

And to show you a better view of the yard:

The farmer featured above was hosting a wedding for the girl working in his home (I think there is a relation here but I can't find where I wrote down the exact relationship so I won't speculate). You may recall that I shared some pictures of her with the craft products that she makes. Here she is again:

She is about 16 or 17 years old

And now she is getting married. The farmer was kind enough to invite us to the wedding and we accepted. To our amazement, the entire farm was transformed as was the bride:

This was the entrance to the wedding, on the farm. The same land you saw in the photos above.

The Bride and Groom

Just stunning

I love this picture. Hard to believe we were a part of something so authentic as this moment in their lives.

There were some practices that we were not aware we had to do. For instance, before we could put our gift down, we had to stand together and get a photo with the couple, holding the gift. The next photo was taken of us presenting the gift to the couple with each of us having one hand on the gift.

A wedding ritual- Although I missed this taking place so I cannot explain further. I should say that these photos are a mixture from all of us IBMers who attended on the night. Thank you team for sharing your pictures.

The attention to detail on each of the wedding guests was simply astonishing. We have nothing on these girls.

Here is a video taken by Anika for when we initially arrived and were taking in the atmosphere:

Here are some pictures of the wedding celebrations, so many people. I'd estimate at least 1000:

Villages often still operate using old practices and traditions. What I mean by this is- the following I am going to describe here would not necessarily happen in the city of Indore (which is where I am staying). So in this next video, what you will see are the men being seated, first to be served their food. Not far away, the women will soon be served. However this is only a particular class being served, as it goes in order of highest to lowest class. Once they have eaten, they would move on and the next class below would sit.

What is also interesting is that the whole system of being fed whilst being seated at a wedding. This is considered a sign of respect. Typically a buffet would be available however as this is a more notorious wedding, the guests here receive special treatment. And yes, I did say 'being fed' in that sentence. You will see what I mean later on. Check out this video of how people are served:

Now I need to tell you about our experience whilst at this wedding. It was quite unlike anything any of us had experienced before. We literally we treated like celebrities, complete with the following of 'paparazzi', bright photography lights being held behind official photographers which made it hard to see at times, constant requests for photos and being slightly mobbed by the crowd.

Check out the video which does a good job of describing what it was like:

Here are some photos of our surroundings:

Tyler being surrounded by all of the teenage boys

You can see in this picture how many people want to be close to you. They were all crowding around us to get our attention.

Tyler now has the interest of the young boys.

You can't really see me but I am there on the left, getting asked like all of the other IBMers if we can pose in a picture with the wedding guests.

Example of said photo

250 000 photos later, we are now invited to sit down and eat. Extra effort is given to us to ensure we feel comfortable and they offer us a table and chairs. Note: this wasn't set up anywhere, they were offering to source it for us. We politely declined and said that we were fine to eat on the floor. They put down an extra mat for us to sit on. Here is how it went:

This is how it looks when you know what you are doing, eating these types of meals.

Here is our attempt. Somehow we don't look as relaxed or uniform.

It is also considered a sign of respect if you are being fed by someone. Literally.

This is the farmer I was telling you about. Can't really refuse when his status is one where he shouldn't be serving you but chooses to do so anyway.

I want to stop and make mention of this guy. He is easily, one of the most impressive, charismatic and engaging people I have ever met in my life. And he doesn't speak a word of English. That tells you something about a person's energy levels and demeanor when words are not required to understand his personality and intentions.

We were all sitting down in a line, like you would have seen in my earlier picture. But did you notice that Maco was about to stand up? Where was he going?

Maco was in line to feed us! Somehow he managed to find one of the bowls of food and he went up and down the line, feeding each of us (IBMers) but also the local village people :)

And after eating, it was time for some dancing. Many songs were played specifically for us, we were told. So there was no choice, but to dance (not a bad beat, some of them!):

"Arms in the air" was the dance move we were shown to copy

Tell you what, these men have rhythm.

Want to see some video footage? Maco (man of many talents) took this video of us dancing. Us girls were asked to dance by some of the ladies here who just completely put us to shame. Their dance skills are awesome :)

Some more pictures of us dancing:

Found myself a cute dance partner

Busting a move

This kid was definitely busting a move.

It is almost time to leave. But where is Maco?

Sitting cheekily with this group - it's like having your own personal 'Where's Wally' book in real life!

Of course before we go, I can't resist a cuddle from a small child:

On a serious note though, it was an absolute honour and privilege to be invited and accepted into these wedding celebrations. Those from the IBM CSC group who attended were myself, Tyler, Anika, Maco, Amalia and Patrick. We agreed that at times, it was overwhelming, completely unlike anything we had ever experienced before and the setting was very very beautiful and vibrant. Most of the people in the village had never seen a foreigner before so this contributed to the amount of attention we received. I can honestly say it looked and felt like we were on a red carpet somewhere in Hollywood, being swarmed by fans and paparazzi whilst playing the role of a celebrity. Definitely an experience. Thank you India.

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