Wedding Day One

The wedding, which lasted for four days, was arranged over a website by a guru. The newly wed's astrological signs, castes, religions, and social statuses matched.
On the 14th we attended the first function of the wedding. It was an evening pooja and prayer ceremony to call the gods to the wedding and to bless the groom. The bride was not even in the city yet, it was just the groom's side. Close family members sang prayers to the groom. It was a long ceremony but it was also not extremely formal. There was singing and dancing and music and people chatted with their neighbor throughout the whole thing. We sat on mattresses that had been set up on the floor and there was a flower covered bower tent-y type thing that was set up on one end where a temple had been set up. People gave a lot of money to the groom and his family, it was given as a blessing by waving the bills around the person being blessed's head.
Of course, like any Indian function, the night ended with a meal.

The temple/ alter that was set up in the hotel. 

Ritu Grover (our exchange coordinator, left) and the groom's mother (right).

The groom dancing with his older sister.

Lohri and my Cousin's Birthday

January 13th was not only my cousin in the U.S.'s birthday, it was also the birthday of my cousin, Jahanvi, here. On top of that, is was also the Hindu holiday Lohri which is like a spiritual New Year. We had another bonfire in the street and most of the neighborhood was there. Everyone took handfuls of special snacks and walked around the bonfire, throwing the food in. This represents burning all sins, mistakes, and ill feelings from the previous year and restarting. The snacks were popcorn, sesame based snacks, and little sweets. People also ate handfuls of them. Around 11, we finally went up for dinner at my aunt and uncle's where we had a birthday dinner fir Jahanvi. After the cake was cut, as tradition, the birthday girls was fed by each person and they were fed in return. When my sister, Ipshita, went to give Jahanvi her cake she smeared it all over her face starting a cake fight. By the end of it, we had cake in our hair, all over our faces, stuck to our socks from the floor, and on our clothes. It was a very fun and crazy night.
The next morning I left to go to the wedding and the hotel where we were staying the next four days.



Today, the 23rd, the exchange students joined one of the Rotary clubs and many people all over the city at one of many stations set up to give polio vaccinations to the slum children. We set up in a small, lower class school in a much poorer part of town. Announcements were made with a blow horn from an auto rickshaw that drove through the streets. We each helped out a different Rotarian. I worked with a woman doctor who alternated between giving pregnant women brief check-ups and prescribing minor medicines to mothers and children for aches, pains, coughs, and things. There was one young women who was pregnant with her fifth child and the doctor told her that she needed to stop having kids. I got to hear the heartbeat of one of the babies too! The room where she did the check ups was a small, empty, concrete class room with no glass on the windows and the women lay on a metal bench.
Hannah helped give out prizes and toys to the children who had gotten the drops. Nikolas and Jordan helped to give the drops to the children. They only had to have any child under 5 swallow a few drops. Jordan also spent some time helping a male doctor who was also there. It was really fun and really cool. This kind of thing was something that I've wanted to do since coming to India.

Last South Tour Pictures

This is the last post of South Tour pictures, too bad I'm leaving for the North Tour in less than a month! I'm almost caught up to current events...

I took this from a restaurant deck in Kovalam, a beach, resort town. It was one of the more touristy places we went but it was also extremely beautiful and a fun place to stay.

The Kovalam lighthouse.

I just realized I don't have any Goa pictures. Goa is probably one of the more famous cities in India, it's a total beach, tourist town. This picture is in a Cafe Coffee Day, which is like the Indian version or Starbucks I guess, in Mumbai. They're in every city and we, the exchange students, tend to go there a lot.  I'm wearing my new favorite pants, they're SO comfortable and baggy and purple... The other person is my friend Nisha Khan from near Toronto.

The Mumbai train station.

SouthTour Pictures Part Seven (Kanyakumari)

Kanyakumari is the town at the very southernmost tip of India. It's also a holy place because it's waters are where three seas meet, the Indian Ocean in the south, the Bay of Bengal in the east, and the Arabian Sea in the west. It's also a fishing town. 

There are a few rock islands just off the coast that have temples built on the to tribute philosophers, poets, and great thinkers. It was a fairly rainy and windy day on the water when we took the boats out. 

This point is the farthest south you can go an still be in India.

There were many people swimming in the waters near to where the seas meet. They actually meet a little further out, you can see it in the water because each body of water is a slightly different color. 

Gandhi's ashes were once held here for a few days until some of them were thrown into the water where the three seas meet. The light only hits the stone on one day a year, his birthday is I remember correctly but it might also be the day of his death.

South Tour Pictures Part Six (Alleppey Backwaters, Houseboat)

I've had a hard time deciding whether I should write about the wedding while it's still fresh in my mind or try to finish up with the rest of my tour pictures. I decided to go with the latter to make things easier for me. I haven't written in my journal about the wedding yet but I think I'll get to it tonight or tomorrow (I'm a few days behind).
Anyways, we spent an evening, one night, and the nest morning on houseboats in the backwaters or Alleppey towards the end of our tour. It was really warm, but beautiful and extremely peaceful! I wish we could have spent another day on board...

We had two boats, this is looking from mine to our other one.

Again, the other boat.

We stopped at a little, little island for the night and tied the two boats together just as the sun was setting.