You Can Get Married on a Tuesday?

When we realized that we, yet again, had no food in our apartment, Rachel and I decided that we would treat ourselves to the famous Valley View breakfast.  The hospital where we take yoga is conveniently right across the street from Valley View, so after yoga we made a beeline for the hotel.  Never disappointed, Rachel and I feasted on fresh pineapple juice, dosas (pancakes), watermelon, muffins, and omelets.  When we couldn’t eat another bite, we made our way back to our apartment to change and get ready for work. 

Work went well; I kept working on my cost sheet and met with Mr. Kiran about my work thus far.  We decided that I have done well and learned a lot about costing, and I should move on to learn about a few other areas of accounting.  No sooner had I sat down at my desk, than Mr. Kiran comes bursting into my office to ask if I want to go to a company wedding with him.  Apparently someone from the accounting department was getting married.  A bit confused, I asked if Rachel could come too.  When Mr. Kiran nodded, I went off to get Rachel and see if this made any more sense to her.  We were equally confused.  People got married on Tuesdays here?  And in the middle of the day?  We asked Akshata, who works in the Think Tank, and she just nodded at looked at us like we were crazy.  She told us people get married on every day of the week.  We shrugged and decided we might as well go!  So we went to find Mr. Kiran with barely any idea as to what was going on.

We hopped into Mr. Kiran’s car and asked him if people generally got married on weekdays.  He explained that the actual marriage ceremony was yesterday, but the reception was today.  And people chose what day they got married based on their horoscopes.  Even the exact time of the ceremony is based on their horoscope.  In fact, everything related to the wedding is based on the star signs of the bride and groom.  It was incredible to me how much astrology influenced Hindu life.  We were so surprised, and explained that American weddings are usually on Saturdays, with a reception immediately following.  As we arrived at the wedding hall, the driveway was crowded, and Rachel and I could hardly wait to see what this would be like and how it would compare to the other wedding. 

After taking off our shoes, we walked into the beautiful wedding hall.  The walls were brightly decorated with deep purples, dark greens, and bright pink.  Again there were flower streamers and what looked like a throne on stage.  The room was scattered with 

plastic chairs and people.  As we sat down to wait our turn for lunch, we saw a few people we had met at the last wedding.  We said hello and caught up a bit before going in to the dining area.  Soon we found a seat and started preparing ourselves for what was sure to be another delicious meal.  The same pattern followed as the last wedding: servers moving up and down the rows of tables and serving the various foods.  First they brought the banana leaf.  Then they brought pickles, potato salad, rice, and a few different gravies, among other things.  Then when we had all eaten our fill, they brought dessert.  One was the hot fruit mixture we tasted at the other wedding, but Rachel’s new favorite looked like hardened honey spirals.  I tasted mine, but it was far too sweet for me.  So I passed along to Rachel, who didn’t mind a bit.  After well wishing the bride and groom, we jumped in the car to head back to work. 

After work we finally went grocery shopping.  We got several fresh mangos and even more bananas; I still love all the fresh fruit here.  We also stocked up on other things we needed, but our best purchase by far was what we affectionately refer to as the “bug zapper.”  We mentioned to a few people that we get absolutely eaten alive by mosquitoes in our apartment, and they recommended a plug-in mosquito repellant.  We were a bit skeptical as to how effective it would be, but as soon as we plugged it in, all our doubts vanished.  It was like magic!  We haven’t seen a mosquito since! After our victory over the mosquitoes we made our way down to the gym, hoping that Insanity wouldn’t get the best of us.  Thankfully, we made it through the workout but just barely.  We dragged ourselves up the stairs to our apartment to shower off and order food.  There was no way we were going out after that!  We inhaled our dinners and collapsed in bed, hoping we wouldn’t wake up too sore!