Food, fainting and more food

Ravi and Lenka
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The day before the wedding Ravi arrived at our guesthouse to take us to his village for the pre-wedding day festivities, which apparently are just as important as the actual day. We drove 15km or so out to the village where he grew up to meet his family and join in the celebrations. We were joined in the car by 2 of Ravi's western friends. Tino (Constantino), a young romany gypsy who had been in India since school, spoke perfect English and Hindi, among many other languages, and soon became our official translator and an Israeli girl who had a name i cant pronounce or spell. Imagine clearing your throat, and you'll be pretty close.

Elly having henna applied to her hands before the wedding
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We arrived at Ravi's house and were met on the door step by his entire family who performed a little religious ceremony, that involved some holy water and the traditional red powder on the forehead. With that we were led into a room with a very large bed for us to relax on, given bottled water (of course) and the fan was turned on for us obviously suffering westerners.

Imagine clearing your throat, and you'll be pretty close

Traditional pre-wedding dancing
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The day pretty much went like this:

Chai

Food

Henna

Ravi being led by drummers through the village
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Chai

Food

Chai

Food

Dancing

Food...food...food

The dancing was amazing - traditional indian style with a drummer, often involving sticks, shouting, clapping and some falling over. We were of course encouraged to join in, but this being the first wedding i had been to, where everyone was sober, i thought better of it. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, and since we had a 6:30 start the next morning, we managed to get a lift back to our guesthouse.

The next day with our lift failing to materialise, we grabbed a taxi with Tino's help, as none of us could explain to the driver which random little village it was that we were going to, although as soon we mentioned Ravi, he of course knew him! Once again at the house we were treated like royalty, and everyone wanted to practice their english and be introduced to us. Most of the guests believed us to be Lenka's (the bride) family, so i think it worked out well as none of her family were there. Two other westerners had joined in the festivities since the start. These happened to be the 2 people we met on the train, who trying through the village on a moped, broke down and came to the house for help, but were soon caught up in the wedding.

After awhile, Lenka was whisked off in a car to the temple and Ravi was placed on a horse in his full traditional indian wedding gear and paraded through the village to the temple. Once there, far too many people crammed into the temple. The temple was a small building with a big burning pit in the centre. The ceremony read out by a priest with a microphone was supposed to last 4 hours or so, but because Lenka was feeling unwell, it was shortened to 30 minutes, of talking, handing spices and pieces of thread to each other and burning things in the pit....ok..ok...i had no idea what was going on, but it was fun nonetheless!

Though the entire ceremony, Lenka looked as if she would faint, and so when they finally stood one last time to leave, over she went and hit the floor like a sack of rice (i think the indian saying goes). Everyone gasped and she was scooped up by Ravi and taken off to the house to recover. With all this excitement, it was time for food and more food.

The festivities were still going strong, when Elly and I, full of food, and worn out from the barrage of questions and attention, decided it was time to leave. We managed to get a lift back to Pushka, squashed into a car with another family who didn't speak a word of english, and who found it a bit odd that i would take pictures of passing camels and obviously mundane village scenes.

It had been a busy 2 days, so we thought it best to do nothing for the next weeks or so...