Naina and Fazal tie the knot...

eelhi...what a fabulous 10 days I had...yet, I didn't actually see much of the city at all. But that only reaffirms even more the fact that people matter so much more than places.

Naina, the cousin of Sonja, my sister from another mother, invited me to attend her wedding. Naina being Hindu and Fazal (her husband to be) being Muslim, it promised to be quite an interesting series of events (Indian style).

Naina, despite being about to get married was the most serene and stress less person ever. She not only managed to find a place for me to crash for the duration of my stay in the city but also managed to spare a whole day with me to help me find appropriate clothes for the four days of the wedding.

But what was the absolute most amazing part of my time in Delhi is that the minute I stepped into Naina's house, her, her sister, and her parents, as well as Sonja and her mom made me feel as if I were a member of the family. It was just unbelievable how natural it felt to be there and to behave and act as if I had always been Naina's and Niharika's brother. But it's not it! Also all the uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, great uncles, great aunts on both the bride and the groom side treated me as a member of their families and actually remembered my name and who I was from day one. That really made me vibrate and moved me a lot.

To the very last minute of my stay, I was not once left aside.

The wedding and its four full and busy days were a fantastic experience.

It is funny because while at SECMOL, the youngest volunteer, a 17 yr old Scottish kid, kept on playing some Bollywood movies and singing the main songs day and night...and I never really paid much attention to it as I had not seen those movies and only planned to watch them later on in my trip...but when I arrived in Delhi, Niharika who was managing the wedding entertainment regarding her and her sister's friends involvment got me to commit to join a few guys to perform a couple of dances for the whole crowd of guests (about 300 people!)...and what dances would these be? Ha! Just the ones the volunteer was singing at SECMOL. Made me laugh quite much.

During this wedding I learnt so much about Indian culture and wedding traditions. Though I do find the whole thing extremely complex and not necessarily something I would want to have, it was so beautiful all through out. And wow you should have seen how gorgeous the bride looked in each of her daily and evening attires. That in itself was a spectacle.

Oh, and during the whole time I got to get much much closer to Sonja's "little monkeys", Surya and Milan, and spent so much time with them that i actually miss them quite much now. Gosh, I learnt a ton about babysitting and child control. Lol I was actually proud of myself when they left because of how I managed to take care of them whenever I had to or was asked to. :-)   can't wait to have my own kids...can't wait...

I have chosen not to go on and on about those ten days but rather to dedicate this blog post to thank Madhu massi, Manu mamu, Niharika, Naina, Amma, Fazal, Sanjay, Sonja and Roop for their amazing welcoming and for making me feel so happy amongst their family during those ten days. I miss you all very much.

Here are some photos of the wedding:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52537245@N00/sets/72157638325581443/

Oh, and before closing this post, just a little anecdote that happened to me as I was on my way to the train station to head to Varanasi:

I can't believe I fell for it. When I got to the train station there was a security guard. He told me my train got canceled due to an accident and that I had to go to the government tourist office to review my booking for the next train. So I went around the whole very very long block and sat down with the government officer who tried to sell me plane tickets and tours to other parts of india, telling me that all trains to varanassi were full until Dec 22.

Thank god I told him I would go back to the station counter and see if I could sneak my way into the next train anyway.

When I got to the station, a man outside in the parking lot told me to go directly to platform nbr 8 and not to listen to anyone else.

So I went...and my original train was there...never got canceled nor postponed.

I am still laughing about it and quite impressed by such a smart scheme they pulled on me. Lesson learnt for next time...