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Knock one more state off your list to make 35 of 50, Nicole, you've now been to Texas. Meanwhile, before this trip, I've never been west of Chicago in the centennial USA, which Nicole correctly would grade as WEAK. Oh by the way I don't think Nicole's parents know she went to Texas so shhhh, don't tell.
For this mulit-day excursion we flew out of State College to rendezvous with eight members of my extended family on their plane from Pittsburgh to Houston. Yay for airport arcades and amusing kids!! My family is insane and acted like they owned the airplane sitting in empty seats and walking around the plane without a care in the world. In Houston we were greeted by Rupal's enormous family and played a fun, can you find a car ride to the hotel without losing your luggage game.
After this excursion, Nicole will probably petition the university because she assumes she deserves credits for a multicultural course, but the truth is I was as clueless as her but I never let it on. It was a great mix of traditions from our part of India and Rupal's, which meant tons of events over multiple days leaving Nicole to play a lot of festive dress up while I rarely wore Indian garb because guys nowadays adhere to more western suit fashions.
From our side of tradition, the day before the wedding they paint the bride-to-be and her lady friends with temporary tattoos of henna. The picture above is Nicole taking part in that jovial ceremony which left me to feed her because she conveniently couldn't hold anything for hours until the henna dried.
We stayed up late at my parent's friend's scenic house which was quite charming and seemed extra fun because the couple that lived there were an unexpected kind of funny that only comes from genuine people who joke with you like you are long lost intimate members of their immediate family. Poor Nicole who dubs herself 'sleepygirl' got maybe 8 of her 40 winks over the next few days.
With the onslaught of cultural dinners and gatherings by days and reminiscing with the couple we stayed with late into the night, Nicole was exhausted. The big pre-wedding tradition from Rupal's side of the family was a like a square dance with sticks. We did it for a while but mostly yielded to the others.
I was saddened that I saw no cowboys, oversized tourist traps, or cows in Texas. It just looked like any other town, with bigger bland repetitious buildings and multiple lane roads. The only think of note we saw was this giant temple made of marble queried from Italy, cut in Indian, imported to Houston where the final touches were carved. It was pimp but used a psdoe-slave like labor to make it and was sexist in that it separated the girls and the guys, which was odd even to my parents who grew up in India where it's rare to see that type of segregation.
Now all the hoopla of the wedding makes me happy that I'll never have to go through it, but I don't cast dispersions on those that are up for all those activities. Following ancient tradition, the morning of the wedding the groom, Arun, mounted a horse with the youngest male on our side of the family. We followed dancing like blazing fools to the beat of an authentic Indian drummer. Normally this would be a parade of miles taking the groom out of his town toward the woman's hometown.
When we got "the woman's side" there was a ceremony where the eldest guy from our side of the family is received by the eldest patriarch from the woman's side. This continues down age progression so all the important uncles and siblings meet to signify the joining of the two families. The fun part of this tradition is a mock wresting match where when two respective males meet; they try to lift the other one signifying their prowess. Of course even at their age, my uncle and dad had the most fun doing this part of the tradition.
The wedding itself was interested because it was preformed in native tongue but then translated into English. My favorite Indian wedding tradition is the woman's side of the family tries to steal the groom's shoe. He has to pay for if he loses it, and there are many religious parts of the wedding day where the groom is forced to de-shoe. During part of the pre-ceremony I got to wear the groom's shoe and then sent them back to my older sister for protection. I think my family successfully protected the shoe. Another special moment was mid ceremony they passed around tiny ice creams cups for everyone to eat while the ceremony was going on and then bottles of water.
After the ceremony was of course the pippin reception to leave Nicole thoroughly exhausted. We flew back with my parent to Pittsburgh, and then back to State College at Midnight, just in time for Nicole to start her senior year in college the next day.
Congrats to the two eye doctors, Arun and Rupal. We're taking bets on how blind their first kid will be.
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