An Indian wedding!

Yesterday we attended Rohit and Kaamna's official wedding ceremony. The ceremony was held at the Mata Ki Kinar temple in Delhi. For the most part, the bride, the groom, and their relatives sat around a square firepit under a canopy while the priest uttered prayers and blessings in Sanskrit. The weirdest part was that nobody seemed to be paying attention! Cell phones were ringing, kids were running around, and crowd was chatting about seemingly everything but the ceremony itself! After about two hours, Kaamna and Rohit were declared officially married and he covered the part in her hair with vermiilion to signify that she was married and to offer her protection as his wife. Apparently, most people had no idea what was going on either--hence the chatting and distractions.
We then headed to the reception--early, mind you--at the Panscheel Club, a tennis club literally across the street from Rohit's house. We were starving and saw the buffet tables the minute we walked in...but the sterno tins were unlit! After a long while (and many littlle "shots" of coca-cola later), we learned from Rohit's sister that dinner wouldn't happen "for a long while". Oh the agony! In the end, we stayed through the speeches and toast, watched a video of a 14-year-old Rohit perform sit-ups and pour bottled water over his shirtless body (yes, you read that right), and got our photos with the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Dhawan. And with that, our Indian wedding extravaganza came to a close.

Next up: the ethereal Taj Mahal...