Marriages are made in heaven: Part I

As most of you may be knowing, it's marriage season! Four of my teammates from my previous project team have got married this year, and many are on the lookout for prospective brides. In fact, one of my friends is headed to his native place this weekend for "match-fixing" ;-)

Our current project's team lead got married today. The upanayanam was in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 5:30 am, followed by the muhurtham (the main ceremony) at around 8:00 am, followed by the breakfast and (a rather heavy, but scrumptious) lunch in the afternoon. The nischithartham (engagement) was yesterday afternoon, followed by lunch, and a reception and dinner buffet yesterday night. Doesn't that sound like a perfect wedding? You bet it is! :-)

I was witness to a curious and rather unusual custom (if we can call it that!) today afternoon... The bride's relatives and the groom's relatives were breaking papads over one another's heads! Go figure...

I hope some day "breaking papads over one's head" (or another's head, for that matter!) gets its rightful place in the Oxford Dictionary... Meanwhile, you can take a crash course on papads here.

Come to think of it, if someone were to take snaps of the "event" and send them to Lijjat, they would have stopped the production of papads forever. On second thought, though, they could do with a publicity campaign. Ohhh... How I wish I had my digicam! :-S

If you have noticed, my post is named "marriages are made in heaven: Part I". That means there is still more to come on marriages, especially Indian marriages (I am currently doing a survey on the same). Stay tuned for some interesting findings and observations!