Summer of Weddings: Amit and Ritu's Wedding.

It's been a relatively uneventful summer for me as I decided to stay in Chicago and work on my research. Other than moving from Hyde Park up to Lakeview, the biggest events have of course been the standard parade of weddings. In Amit and Ritu’s case, “parade” is an apt description as their families threw a grand Punjabi bash at the Palmer House Chicago. Attending this event with the local Bengalis (Korok, Satadru) was interesting as it allowed us to see the event through a collective Bong lens. (I know, a number of you may be thinking that I just made a drug reference but don't worry, it's just a very offensive racial epithet). I've divided this post up into three parts, which I'll finish as the weeks and month progress. Part I will talk about the Sangeet while Part II will focus on the Mehendi and Barat. Part III will cover aspect specific to the wedding. Apologies, for those of you who do not like posts in trilogy-form.

PART I: The Sangeet

Amit and Ritu's wedding began with a sangeet, a traditional evening of entertainment that takes place just prior to the day of the wedding. It is a festive night of excess, in which the guests indulged in a wide variety of delectable cuisines while taking in a series of well-rehearsed song and dance numbers by the members of the bride and groom’s artistically talented family.

The sangeet is also important because it is the first point in the Indian wedding where our non-Indian friends incorporate themselves into Indian culture. For weeks up to the wedding, we emphasize to them the importance of maintaining Indian customs and dress during the event. The details can be daunting, but friends like Matt Murphy are good sports and are willing to don a borrowed sherwani for the sake of an old college friend like Amit. It is at this point that Matt truly begins to feel that he is part of the event.

The glow is fleeting as Matt walks into the reception hall only to find that all of the Indians have shown up in suits (I mean, who has time to change into a Sherwani after work?). He realized that he is the object of an old Indian joke (in the same spirit as the time I invited Sean Stallings home to eat traditional Thanksgiving “Curried Turkey” with my family) and must spend the remainder of the evening humiliated as the Indian parents walk around calling him a gaandu.

Ok, maybe that just a depiction of how I thought the night would work out in my head. The reality is that Matt put on that sherwani and instantly became the life of the party. He took on this “Bill Clinton on a state visit to India” persona as throngs of Indian uncles slapped him on the back, saying “Mett, luking grrreat, yaar….you must come and watch me sing "Roop Tera Mastana" with my wife Manjubala.”

Meanwhile, I had the stink of “old news” in the eyes of the Indian guests. Amit would introduce me to an uncle who after a few seconds of evaluating the blue kurta that I had clearly worn previously to a low-level puja, would simply say “nice homespun beta, now go get some Black Label for me and my buddy Mett.”

At least Korok performed admirably for the Bengalis. Having learned from the “shirt-with-embroidered parrot” travesty that he wore to my cousin’s wedding in Calcutta, he wowed the crowd with a sherwani, kurta, and Nehru jacket medley that will doubtless remain the talk of the Greater Chicago, Indian Wedding fashion circuit for Summer, 2006. With his impeccable style and stellar bio-data, it could be said that Korok has become the “it boy” of the Indian community. Our John F. Kennedy, Jr., if you will…

Anyway, in all seriousness, I had an amazing time and along with Amit, downed several Red Bulls in order to prep myself for two more full days of action. As a people, I really have to give the Punjabis credit for going all out when it comes to emphasizing the enjoyable aspects of a wedding. Bengalis, by contrast, often have the tendency to intellectualize the fun out of everything. As my mother likes to say, "Bengalis don’t have sangeets largely because we are an understated and introspective lot"... it’s a smart remark when you think about it: it simultaneously enables us to act like snobs (“we prefer to emphasize the pious nature of the occasion”) while tacitly acknowledging that we aren’t inherently a very fun or talented people. This is a classic Bengali trait, one I'm sure will be expounded upon in excruciating detail by Jhumpa Lahiri in her next book.

I can only imagine what a Bengali sangeet would look like: some lackey recites verses from the Rabindra Sangeet as a collection of Bengali men, adorned in drab kurtas that fit awkwardly under a Cosby sweater, sit cross-legged with a glass of Chivas Regal in one hand and a fresh rasgulla in the other. Their eyes closed and heads bobbing left to right ever-so-slightly, they listen silently, with only the occasional “bah, bah” in response to a particularly moving mantra.

I’ve spent many years trying to understand why Punjabis and Bengalis have such different conceptions of fun. The best explanation that I’ve come up with so far is that Punjabis are alcoholics and Bengalis are inveterate stoners.

PART II: The Mehendi and Barat

After a final night out with the boys at Y-Bar, I struggled to drag myself out bed to get ready for the barat, an event that has become my favorite part of the Punjabi wedding. Reeling after being upstaged both by Korok and Matt Murphy, I decided to step things up notch by wearing an ultra modern kurta that according to my cousin, had drawn the accolades of the (surprisingly open) gay male Bengali community during my last visit to Calcutta. If this didn’t increase my standing, I didn’t know what would. Of course, it's always when one tries too hard that he’s just asking to get upstaged. Sure enough, Korok and Matt also saved their best for last, wowing the crowd with their regal white sherwanis. To add insult to injury, even Satadru brought his A-game and wore an elegant Nehru jacket. Fortunately, I was able to deliberately screw him over by picking him up from his house before he was able to find anything but a white shirt to wear underneath his jacket. He looked like a Catholic priest for the wedding and reception, but to his credit, made light of all the references to “Father Hore.”

In India, the barat is a grand procession of the groom’s family and friends from the home of their patriarch (i.e., Grandpa) to the “house” of the bride, where the wedding traditionally takes place. The men in the groom’s family, dressed in their traditional sherwani and turbans, each take several swigs of whiskey, pouring the remainder down the throat of the groom (in keg stand form, no less). The groom, along with a little nephew (a 3 to 7 year old male member of the family), are then placed on a horse that proceeds toward the bride’s home behind a band playing what sounds like boisterous Qawwali music. The kid may simply seem like a cute touch to the ceremony, but in reality the process requires at least one sober person to keep the horse (and wedding party) moving in the right direction.

My fondness for the barat stems from my cousin’s marriage to a Punjabi in Calcutta last December. As her husband’s wedding party approached the petal-adorned gates of the wedding venue, the Bengali contingent waiting at the door stood mesmerized (and somewhat unsure about what to do next) as the active Punjabi crowd entertained us by singing and dancing to the tune of the band. This sight was rather new to us as Bengali grooms are a sort typically loathe to strenuous activity. They traditionally show up in a half-heartedly decorated Ambassador followed by a throng of their aunties who bellowing in unison to ward off evil spirits. The sound of their collective voice (cackling? I can't even find a word to describe it) is so shrill that those in the not-so-immediate vicinity might think that that flock of crows is pecking someone’s eyes out. With that kind of tradition it’s no wonder that we Bengalis tend to do away with pleasantries and get on with things as quickly as possible.

The groom’s contingent can sing and dance for hours if one lets them. My cousin, who was contending with several pounds of jewelry on her head and a jaw half-wired shut from having fallen flat on her face from the night before, decided that she had heard just about enough. Waiting at the mandap for the guests, she sent her older (and highly authoritative) sister Neelakshi to regulate. As the older brothers of the family, Neelakshi sent my brother and me to front of the crowd to receive the groom…and forcibly pull him off of the horse.

Against the groom’s will, his family at this point decided that it would be cute for all of them to act like they wouldn’t let him off unless we paid them some amount. Not speaking a word of Hindi or Punjabi, I smiled acceptingly as they spelled out their terms. Apparently unaware of the contrived nature of the situation, the man who owned the horse seemed to be under the impression that all terms of the wedding were really up for renegotiation. Inserting his diminutive frame between the horse and myself, he demanded that we pay him more money before he would let the groom off. Of course, this is where the esteemed members of my extended family (most of whom I had never met before) chose to argue over an extortion fee that amounted to 150 Rupees ($3 US). Having officially lost my patience, I turned the death eyes on to one of my purported uncles and told him (in very American English) to “ pay the man. right…now.” Thus marked the auspicious end to what is the social experiment that is the Punjo-Bengali barat (See sidenote).

Amit and Ritu’s barat was a little more organized and enhanced by the grandeur of the elegant structures that line State Street. Lacking confidence in his ability to steer a horse through Chicago traffic (apparently a young child was unavailable), Amit’s mother opted for a horse and carriage that moved behind the procession across three blocks of Monroe Street to the Palmer House. The site of a bunch of fully decked out Indians dancing effusively to a powerful drum beat was enough to draw a significant crowd of bystanders to the sidewalk, effectively shutting down the intersection of State and Monroe.

A group of people from the street pulled me aside and asked me what was going on. Having not spent my jackass quota for the day, I told them that Amit was the “Nawab of Amritsar” who was in Chicago on a state visit from Punjab. As the tourists excitedly took pictures, I gestured back to our esteemed groom to give the crowd his patented "royal wave." Looking confused, he sheepishly returned the wave, inciting a great deal of excitement from the occupants of a tourist bus that was passing by. The sheepish wave quickly evolved into a confident seated swagger as the rush of being the focal point of hundreds of people began to set in. In the rank order of Amit’s life experiences, this one will have to fall somewhere between the birth of his first child and bottle service at Y-Bar.

The end of the barat was followed by a cordial greeting of the families in which the mother of the bride welcomes the groom and the males of the respective families give their respective counterparts a bear hug in which they try to pick one another up. Following a short intersession, I met up with the Bengalis, along with esteemed members of the Contemporary Issues Roundtable and made my way to the massive reception hall where the actually wedding ceremony was to be held.

As great as so many aspects of the barat were, I would by lying to you if I didn’t say that the best part may have been marching past the stunned family and guests of an American wedding that was also being held at the hotel. Though a great feeling of cultural pride set in as we passed by, I have to admit that I couldn’t quite tell whether their jaws dropped to the floor out of jealous awe or simply because they were dumbstruck by the National Geographic Special that was unfolding before their eyes.

Ok, that’s enough for now. Part III is coming soon.

(Sidenote 1): My sister-in-law Christina likens my cousin's wedding to that of Connie Corleone from the beginning of “The Godfather.” However, unlike that wedding, the hierarchical roles haven’t quite worked themselves out in our family as yet. For example, as Bridezilla, my cousin fit the role of young Connie perfectly, but her elder sister Neelakshi is clearly our family’s matriarch-in-waiting, much like Connie from Godfather III (my mother currently rules our family with an iron fist as Mama Corleone and Christina revels in her role as Kay. I do think she worries about whether I'll bring home Apollonia, but that would call for a footnote-within-a-footnote).

The role of Michael is still up for grabs. After my terse exchange with the uncle, however, Christina declared that I had moved ahead in the race. My brother (knowing that I really want the title) agreed with her and self-deprecatingly fashioned himself as our modern day Fredo. The truth is that his thoughtful, measured, and conflict-avoidant nature is more fitting of a Tom Hagen. It should also be noted that my family also has an embarassment of riches when it comes to filling the role of Fredo. I won’t go into excessive detail about who the Don Vito of our family is, but I will say that it has been a passive struggle between two agressive men (my dad and my uncle, the father of the bride) since my mom’s dad passed away 30 years ago. Both men loom large, but out of paternal loyalty, and the fact that he has a compelling Vito-esque immigrant experience under his belt, I’m going to give the nod to my old man, Big Chakra. (I am also acutely aware of the consequences if he were ever to find out about this blog and read otherwise).