This journey takes you to the land of the kings and begins in one of the oldest existing
cities in all of India.
Pushkar, Rajasthan!
Regular Clothing: Since watching a Bollywood movies at a youne age and seeing a colourful
and extremely interesting Indian wedding celebration, I knew that one day I had to attend one myself.
Luckily for me, my first Indian wedding happened to be in India!
Although the movies gave me a good idea of what to expect, at least I thought so, they
couldn't have prepared me for how my Indian wedding experience would actually turn out.
During my first day in Pushkar, my friend Gerda and I were invited by another foreigner
to listen to a drumming lesson by with a renowned Indian drummer named Natu.
When I met Natu, I was welcomed into his home with a big hug and gentle smile.
While Natu taught the lesson, Gerda and I swayed our bodies to the rhythm of the drums.
While we were really into it, the drumming suddenly stopped and Natu looked over at me
and asked:
"Kristen, are you professional dancer?"
"I wouldn't call myself a professional dancer, but I do enjoy it quite a lot."
"You are a very good dancer" Natu added.
You MUST come to a wedding in the desert in a few days where I will be drumming and my
students will be drumming as well.
Gerda and I looked at each other with delight and very quickly replied with
"Of course we will come!"
We were both so exciting to attend our first traditional Rajasthani wedding.
Natu told us to meet back at his place in a few days at 4PM so that we could meet the
other foreigners who would be drumming and drive together into the desert to attend this
mysterious wedding.
Gerda and I left with so much excitement running through our veins.
We couldn't wait to return to Natu's in a few days to go on a crazy desert, wedding
adventure.
On the day of the wedding, Gerda and I, along with another friend, showed up an hour early
at Natu's house.
When we arrived, there were six other foreigners waiting.
After some chai and much anticipation of the evening ahead, Natu announced that it was
time to leave for the wedding.
Nine foreigners along with Natu, the driver, and twelve drums, packed into one jeep and
drove an hour into the desert.
You could say it was a little crammed, but after spending 3 months in India at this point,
this wasn't out of the ordinary.
Half way through the journey, we stopped on the side of the road in a small village for
some chai.
As soon as we all stepped out of the vehicle, it was as if we had landed on another planet.
The entire town stopped what they were doing to stare and slowly surround us "aliens."
I now knew how caged animals in a zoo felt.
Natu informed us that foreigners never visit the town we were in so for many of the town's
people, it was their first time seeing a Westerner.
As we sipped our chai, the towns people continued to intensely watch our every move with very
keen interest as well as the 50 cows that came out of no where.
Even when we finished our chai and got back in the jeep, the villagers surrounded the
vehicle and peered in through the windows at us.
As we drove off, I watched as they continued to stare in our direction until we had driven
so far that the crowd become only a speck in the far distance.
We arrived at the wedding just after sunset to be greeted by a family of one hundred who
like the other villagers, very rarely or never, had seen a foreigner.
The adults stared at us with curiosity as the children pointed and shyly giggled amongst
themselves.
It didn't take long for them each to approach us and shake our hands and welcome us to their
home.
After ten minutes of shaking hand's, the chai had triggered an alarm in my bladder, and
I asked Natu where I could find a toilet.
Natu told me to follow one of the boys as he would show me where I could "relieve myself."
I followed the boy to the back of his house where he pointed to what looked to be a very
small shed.
I walked over to the "shed" and sure enough that is exactly what it was.
Not only was it a shed, but it was packed with so much random stuff that I couldn't
even see the floor beneath it all.
I looked back at the boy who now had the entire village standing with him staring at me.
I guess I had confusion written all over my face because all the villagers broke out in
laughter.
Fortunately, I decided to continue on a mission to find an actual toilet, or at least solid
ground, while the villagers watched my every move.
It didn't take long to find an actual toilet which was located ten feet away from the shed.
As I write this, I still am confused as to why they wanted me to go in a shed.
Oh, well.
When I went back to Natu and the group, I was informed that because this was a very
traditional wedding, the ladies had to cover up.
Apparently, a kurta, trousers, sweater, and pashmina was not enough.
We were each given very long colourful skirts to put over our pants as a form of respect
to the other people at the wedding.
After our wardrobe readjustment, we were informed that it was time for us to make our entrance
into the wedding.
We excitingly marched together, followed by the villagers, into a white palace where the
wedding was held.
We arrived to a room filled with many many...men!
There wasn't one lady at the gathering.
Natu informed me that it is tradition to separate the ladies and men for a wedding celebration.
Apparently, we were not going to witness the actual ceremony, but instead the post ceremony
celebrations.
Natu told us that we need to be silent and follow his every move.
Unsure what was going on, I obliged.
We all followed Natu in a line until we were all standing in front of the King of the village.
Wait what?
A KING?!?!
"Yes, the king of the village is at this wedding and we most give our respects and impress
him with out performance."
I couldn't believe I was meeting a king.
I can now check mark meeting a king off my bucket list.
Just like Natu, we put our hands together in Namaste and followed Natu to where the
king sat.
We took turns bowing our heads in silence to the king.
We then followed Natu to the stage area where he and his students set up their drums to
perform.
Myself, Gerda and a couple of other girls Natu invited sat quietly behind Natu and the
drummers and took in the perfomance and our surroundings.
While Natu and his students beat their drums, it didn't take long before they drew a crowd
closer to the stage.
Just as the drumming started to pick, the other girls left me for the washroom.
I sat behind the drummers and continued listening to the performance.
It wasn't long into the performance that Natu looked back at me sitting behind him and told
me it was my time to perform.
With much confusion, I said to him, "what do you mean perform?"
He replied with, "Go perform!
Go dance!"
I looked around at the large crowd of men and said, "You've got to be kidding!"
Of crouse, the other girls were in the washroom at the time and it was just me who was being
asked to go dance in front of 100 indian man and 1 king.
Once again, I said, "You've got to be kidding!"
For a minute I didn't budge from my seat until Natu looked back at me again with sweat dripping
from his head and said, "Please, Kristen, you must perform.
They are expecting you to perform!"
When I was invited to the wedding by Natu, there was no talk about me performing but
if Natu had given his word that I was to perform, well there was nothing else left for me to
do then get up there and shake what my mama gave me.
Just as I got up, the other girls arrived back from their pee break unaware that we
were all about to make a fool out of ourselves.
I quickly shouted to them, "We are on!"
With a lot of confusion and some hesitation, we all made our way to the open floor.
As I walked over, a very important thought occurred to me.
How was I going to dance?
I was surrounded by a very traditional family, the town King and all I knew was how to shake
my ass and drop it like its hot.
So, with the key word, "tasteful" stuck in my head, I swayed my hips, just a little,
back and forth to the beat of the drums.
Then as time went on, I got into it, and that "tasteful" word left my head without saying
goodbye.
I started to really move my body to the music.
I looked around at the other girls who were throwing their hands up in the air, closing
their eyes and jumping around like wild monkeys.
I burst out laughing just as Natu and his disciples stopped drumming.
Myself and the girls quickly ran back to our seat.
One of the boys drumming turned around to tell us that we looked like a therapy group
"letting everything go."
I had to agree with him.
Our performance was very 'hippie like.'
When Natu and his students finished their performance, we all got up to go to the woman's
party.
As we walked past the crowd of men, they excitedly repeated, "You are very amazing artist.
More dance!
More dance!"
Although I'm fairly positive that they weren't nearly as impressed with our dancing as they
were with a bunch of Western women shaking their goods.
When we arrived at the women's party, the bride and her family were dressed in beautiful
saris' of every colour of the rainbow.
Each one of them were taking turns spinning around the room very gracefully, captivating
each one of us foreigners.
Natu and his students set up their drums once again.
Natu then informed us that we would be performing yet again.
Now, performing for the men was one thing, but to perform for these very traditional
women who don't even show their face in public, would pose a challenge.
Once again, myself and the four other ladies went up to 'perform.'
Again, the drumming took us away and we ended up being a little more provocative then we
maybe should have been.
However, the ladies loved it!
They applauded for us as we finished our dance and took our seats.
After the drumming came to a definite end, we were given whiskey and food.
Not a bad pay off for our work I must say.
As we ate, Natu came over to inform us that everyone really loved our performance so much
that we had been invited back the next day for some more celebrations.
As much fun as I had, I decided to retire from my job as an Indian wedding performer.
We finished our whiskey and dinner and went over to the palace to thank the family for
inviting us to this special occasion.
As the celebrating came to an end, we all piled back into the jeep for our long journey
home.
As we drove away, each one of us looked at each other and burst out laughing.
I thought to myself that I definitely couldn't have planned this part of my trip beforehand.
I looked out the window, into the sky, smiled and said, "India, you never fail to surprise
me."