shankar2k's Journal: The Wedding of Ankita and Janakan

I just went and saw Episode III yesterday (one word review: Awesome!), and so inspired by that, I'm going to detail the epic saga of Ankita Shah's and Janakan Sivasubramaniam's Gujarathi Jain/Sri Lankan Tamil wedding in six Episodes:

Episode I: The Phantom Prologue

• My last few weeks in school were ridiculously hectic. I'm not sure how I get myself into these things
• For one of my courses, our entire grade is based on three projects all due on the last day of the course. When did my dumb*ss start all three? One week before that. Luckily, I was able to half-ass all of them to make the professor happy.
• Right after, I had to proctor the final exam for the course I TA. I didn't know it at the time, but it should be the last time I every have to do TA work. I took the exam while I was proctoring, and though my concentration wasn't there and I had to stop after the first student turned his in, I beat the mean. I guess I really know Digital Signal Processing.
• I was so tired, but I had my own final exam to study for! This was for graduate Abstract Algebra aka Math Grad Boot Camp (I'm not a math grad by the way). I've managed to survive all semester, and I think I will get by once again. I guess that which does not kill you makes you stronger ...
• Oh yeah, while all of this was going on, I had to finish up a summer fellowship application (this one will actually mean extra bling for me), and start writing a journal version of one of our research papers. I don't know how I got all of this done.
• The day before I flew to LA, I called up Ankita and Janakan to find out what was up. I was dismayed to learn that Janakan already had a bachelor party. Damn. That's two that I've missed out on now. I wanted to do something, so the night I flew in, I took them to TGI Fridays for drinks. Janakan held his own with the drinks, but Ankita wanked out after drinking half a margharita and a lemon drop shot. I took a raincheck for the Tuesday after the wedding.

Episode II: Attack of the Mehndi and Garba

• It finally hit me how tired I was. I didn't much this day, but I came by for the Mehndi party. This is a party where all of the girls get together and put Henna tattoos all over their arms and feet. It's pretty cool looking stuff.
• I've been to one of these for my relations, but these Gujurathi really make it elaborate. All these aunties were singing loudly while us men hung out side and talked about sports.
• They offered to have some Mehndi done for me, but I did it in India once, so the novelty was done so I passed.
• I had to leave to pick up Divakar-bhava (my cousin sister's husband). He was randomly going to be in town for something else. Oh yeah did I mention that I'm going to be driving people around throughout this saga? Don't worry, it was all good.
• The next day I got Divakar-bhava setup with a rental car. They ran out of mid-size cars, so he rolled in a pickup truck of all things.
• I went out with my dad and Divakar-bhava to see the movie Be Cool (three word review: not that cool).
• I had to leave early to pick my friend Ralph from the airport.
• The second event of the wedding was the 'Raas-Garba', a traditional Gujurathi dance.
• The dance involves holding these two sticks called 'Dhandiya' and beating them together and against other peoples' dhandiyas in beat with the music.
• I am not nor ever have been a very good dancer. After embarassing myself with the first dance (I looked like I was just running around in circles), I managed to learn the four step stick beating process, only to be thrust into a more complicated twelve step process involving spinning around. Gaya and I managed to break up at least two different dancing circles.
• It was here that I first met up with the old Berkeley crew of Anne, Ralph, Calvin and Rob (Blazej and Kristina only came for the wedding the next day). It was good seeing them all again.
• I realized here that there were many different crews representing at this wedding: Janakan's friends from Berkeley, Janakan's friends from Irvine, Ankita's friends from Bakersfield, Ankita's relations, and Janakan's relations. Its always interesting to see how these meshings pan out.
• Oh yeah, halfway through the Garba, I had to skate off to LAX to pick up Sanjeevan, Janakan's cousin from London.
• After the Garba, a bunch of people met up at Ankita's house for some drinks. We brought our friends Jack,Jim and Jose if you catch my drift.

Episode III: Revenge of the Ganesh-Pujas

• Each side of the family wanted to have a Ganesh puja before the wedding.
• Basically this is a prayer to Lord Ganesh (the elephant god) to make sure everything goes alright for the wedding.
• I hangover fairly easily, so though I didn't have all that much interaction with Jack, it was enough to make not feel all that great.
• The Gujurathi-style breakfast didn't help: fried stuff and ice cream. Good thing there was water.
• I drove some of Janakan's family to Irvine for their Ganesh puja.
• I think at some point during this day, I got inducted into his family. All I have to do now is add about five syllables to my last name. Seriously, they were treating me like I was some cousin of theirs. It was pretty cool.
• They had the same priest preside over both the Jain puja in the morning and the Hindu puja in the afternoon, because apparently he was well versed in both techniques. I'm going to get a Rabbi to perform my ceremony.
• After that puja, we took his family around Newport beach for a little bit, and then came back to their motel in Cerritos. Things got a little tense there, but it didn't bother me for two reasons: 1. This ain't my wedding. 2. Tamilians act very similarly to my Kannada-Tulu people so I completely understand how they work.
• The tragedy of the whole wedding was that Gaya was only two months from being legal drinking in America, though she was already legal in Canada where she's from. I sympathized with her plight and so we got some white russians and drank them in the park.

Episode IV: A New Wedding

• Gujurathi weddings are a great deal more elaborate than others on the Indian subcontinent. I thought that my role as "best man" was to drive people around and give a speech. I soon found that there was a whole lot more involved
• Janakan and I drove up in a beamer decked in roses to the sounds of Bhangra music. We had a full entourage of people walking in front of the car up until we reached the front of the Sheraton where the wedding took place. A full on dance party broke out right in front right before we entered.

• Janakan walked in and was greeted by Ankita's parents. They exchanged some gifts and she applied some powders to his forehead. Now came the first of my duties. I had to protect his nose. You see, for some reason, at some point Ankita's mother would try to sneak in and pinch his nose, and it was my duty to prevent that. She was wily though. She told me that it wasn't that part of the ceremony and quickly got a pinch in. I tried though.

• We had to take off our shoes before we got on stage, and thats where the next weirdity of these Gujurathis came in. Ankita's relatives were going to try and steal our shoes at some point, so that they could then auction them back to us. Luckily we knew beforehand. Two of Janakan's Irvine mates knew what was up and protected them for us.
• They walked onto the stage and the ceremony began. A lot of mantras being chanted, a little bit of fire. Coconuts, milk, and rice are all involved somehow. It's kind of complicated. As "best man", i just had to sit next to Janakan in my red poly-silk kurta pajama, brushing his face off with tissues every now and again.
• At one point Gunjan (Ankita's brother) and Neha (Ankita's cousin sister) took a hold of Janakan's toe and refused to let go. I had to bribe them for them to let go. That was my role: Janakan's bling-holder.
• Ankita looked radiant. I was amazed, I actually saw her tearing up during certain parts of the ritual.
• As we got off stage, Milan and Yagnesh, Janakan's Irvine mates, presented the shoes on platter with roses. Ankita's family tried one last ditch attempt to get the shoes. Her brother came up to Yagnesh (who is a pretty big guy) and tackled him to the floor. He tossed the shoes to Milan who ran off. Then some of her aunties got into the ruckus as well. It was chaotic, and a valiant struggle, and in the end Milan and Yagnesh successfully defended the shoes.
• We went back out to the decked out beamer to leave, and Gunjan was there, blocking the car from leaving. I had to give up the rest of the bribe money to get him out of the way. Ah well, it wasn't my money.
• The lunch was fantastic, but I didn't get to savor it because of all the running around.

Episode V: The Reception Strikes Back

• Before the reception I had to drive people between different places. Not a problem.
• They decided to have an open bar before the reception. I wish I had remembered that it was only open for an hour, or I would have had a lot more.
• Janakan and Ankita took their time coming out, but when they finally did it was even more elaborate than the wedding. First there was a Laker style roll-call for each member of the immediate family, complete with individual soundtracks. Then there was their first dance, which was to the tune of "More than Words" by Extreme, with Milan at the guitar. It was really touching and inspiring. I think I'm going to take the guitar up again when I get back to Urbana.
• Neha and Naman (another cousin-brother of Ankita) were the emcees for the evening, and though we didn't know it at the time, they were pretty sloshed when they were hosting. They had a Top 10 list of reasons why Ankita married Janakan to transition between acts. My favorite one: "Number two: Tall, dark and handsome? Well, two out of three ain't bad."
• I was nervous about my speech. I had given one at Blazej and Kristina's wedding, but this one was more difficult because they gave me a list of things not to mention, and it is just easier to make fun of Blazej and Kristina. Inspired from before, I didn't memorize the speech, I just thought about a couple key points that I wanted to hit.
• Gunjan and Gaya both gave speechs and mine was coming up next, but for some reason, I forgot that I had to give a "toast". I gave my speech, and it was a decent one, and then I congratulated them and sat down, not realizing that I never toasted. So yes, I totally shanked the toast (no pun intended).
• After that, and the slideshow and cake cutting and dinner, there was of course more dancing. I wasn't feeling it at first (mostly because I was kicking myself about the speech and I missed out on maximizing the open bar), but I got into it. I'd like to become more furious at dancing.
• After all of it, the kids all got together in a room at the Sheraton, and had a little afterparty. I didn't get home until about 3.

Episode VI: Return of the Epilogue

• The next day, Ankita's Bakersfield crew, myself and some others decided to take her out to the Cheesecake Factory. We couldn't find a close one, so we ended up going to the one in Sherman Oaks. It took usd about four hours to get back.
• Janakan and I dropped off his friend Thomas at the airport, and we tried to get Sanjeevan a rental car so he could head to Vegas. That was a minor tragedy, but we finagled something in the end.
• We found ourselves in Irvine so a bunch of use met up at Milan's place and had a 2-dollar-buyin No Limit Tournament. Or rather, they did while I drank beer.
• On Tuesday, Ankita and Janakan took me out to dinner, in appreciation of my mad driving skillz. Then we went back to Irvine, and I used that raincheck, so Ankita got a little tipsy. She's a fun drunk.
• Now I'm back in Illinois, chillin with my crazy nephew Yash. He's a crawling machine.

Woah. this might have been the longest entry I've yet written. I'll leave the analysis and introspection for another day.