A Winter in India

The four of us attended a truly memorable wedding last night. Lavina Shankar’s brother’s wife’s cousin was getting married. In the US that would be a distant enough relationship that the brother’s family probably wouldn’t be invited, let alone four Westerners. But in India, extended families are included and they very generously included us as well. We had met the bride and the groom’s family (the Wadis) when Lavina and Rajiv were here in India. Lavina and Rajiv had both assisted me picking out a sari, and last night was the occasion.

I asked the landlady if she would give me a lesson in wrapping the sari. As you can see, it took a village. The landlady and her daughter supervised, while the daughter’s maid did the wrapping. She needed to know what jewelry I was going to wear, because that would help determine how to wrap it. There was lots of discussion, while I stood Barbie-doll-like being dressed.

They also helped Carolyn get the scarf (dupati) draped just right with her salwar kameze. Milan was able to dress himself, though his black shoes did not get the nod of approval. He ended up wearing Dave’s LL Bean moose hide bedroom slippers, probably a first for Indian wedding apparel, and a new sales angle for LL Bean for sure.