Journey to the South: Wedding in Madurai

First, How To Eat

In Calcutta, the two of us got on board an airplane, India Air, and flew due south to Madras, the fourth largest city in India which was once a British center. Today, it is a bustling city with lots of people and lots of traffic. But we did not spend time in Madras; we just got on a train and continued going south until we reached Madurai. So much was different in Southern India that it was almost like being in a different country. The people are more relaxed, friendlier; in addition, they are more likely to speak English. Part of my opinion here is certainly influenced by the fact that by the time I arrived in Madurai, I was beginning to adjust to all of the ways in which India just seems unreal. Wedding in Madurai

On top of that, there was a familiar face: John Mueller, an old friend from high school, was studying in Madurai and took us all for all sorts of adventures. For starters, he taught us how to eat, South Indian style! You go to the equivalent of a deli, your basic lunch place, and you sit down. Shortly, someone brings you a big leaf, about two feet long. Shortly after that, someone else brings you a glass of water. You are advised not to drink that water -as usual- but it does not go to waste. You splash some of it on the leaf and clean it off a little. Next, someone carrying a load of dosa, a kind of South Indian flat bread made out of lentil flour, dropped by and dropped dosa -on our leaves. Finally, another fellow came by carrying a thing that resembled four small tin buckets welded together with a handle on top. Each small cylinder contained some kind of sloppy food, various bean and curry and lentil and vegetable and sauce mixtures which tasted great, but no one ever seemed sure of the name. All this was consumed by taking strips of bread in the right hand (never the left. For reasons why, click back to Vrindaven.)and dipping it, rubbing it, scooping it and squishing it into the myriad of unnamed stews and sauces. John was the expert. Hands down. (By the way, this was also how we ate at the wedding banquet).

Guests At the Wedding

But the best thing that John did for our visit to Madurai was to invite us to a Hindu wedding. The bride was the younger sister of the host family of one of John's classmates. She was eighteen years old, marrying a much older man whom she had just met. You can see it in her eyes, I think, the terror, the anticipation, the excitement. In the United States, people get the pre-wedding jitters; but at least an American is usually marrying someone that they have spent some time with! This young girl had never left the city where she was born and raised. Now she would be marrying an older man, in his thirties, and moving to Madras, a city which seemed a continent away to her and her family. For the ceremony, I donned a sari, the traditional Indian women's apparel. A sari basically consists of a large piece of material wrapped around a woman's body in such a way that, if done correctly, it stays on and up with no help from pins, buttons or belts. Of course if you are me, and frustrated American students are trying to get the damn thing to stay on, then you cheat: you get a safety pin.


And it seems to have worked!

Back to Calcutta
Return to the beginning


text, photos and code by Elizabeth Mitchell