The Wedding March

Becca practicing her scolding look when she catches me peeking at Adam

Seeing as I have been busy studying for finals and writing my gazillion papers; I thought I would take some time off to write about my recent nuptials. For those who don't know, I recently got married...(haha, not for real). I performed as the bride in our recent Bengali folk arts night at St. Xavier's. We have been taking a folk arts class while in Kolkata, and one of our assignments was to perform a dance for our host parents. I was cast as the child bride (back in traditional times the bride would be 6 and the groom would be 12). While the rest of the girls and Drew performed the dance, I sat on a stool and tried to sneak glances at the groom, played by Adam. My entourage of women family members were played by Becca, Kelsey K, and Brenna and they scolded me as I tried to glance at Adam. Apparently during this time period, Bengali brides wouldn't know their husbands so it was understandable that I was trying to peek at Adam.

Munu helping Rita with her sari

I wore a brightly colored sari, Rachel's dance jewelry (the most "bling" I have ever worn), and a garland of flowers. The final touches went to putting on a bindi and thousands of pounds of makeup before the end of the sari was thrown over my head like a veil. Apparently it is also common for these child brides to be hidden behind a veil for their entire wedding. Before going on Becca said I looked like the grim reaper with by little sari hood, and I must say as a gender studies minor, I don't particularly think that it would be fun to sit on a chair and hide behind a veil for my entire wedding.

I also was a little disappointed that I was not a part of the dancing group seeing as I have lots of dance experience after dancing for 14 years. I wasn't sure whether the folk dance teacher picked me to be the bride because I looked the least Indian and he could hide me under my sari veil, or if he just chose at random. I acted my part splendidly and now will get credit for the folk arts dance even though all I did was sit on a stool.

Kate all dressed up and ready to go

The night wasn't a total bust though because we also were asked to make patachitra scrolls. Patachitra is a Bengali art form where pictures are drawn on a scroll and you sing the story as you unfold the scroll. Rachel and I decided we wouldn't torture the audience with our singing abilities, and instead focused on our drawing abilities. We decided to tell the story of Rajib and Anjali, two star-crossed lovers whose love has to remain a secret because their parents disapprove, so they meet every day at the Victoria Memorial (which is the date spot in Kolkata, at least I think so since I saw tons of people kissing there). Everyone's patachitra was great and some of the songs were quite funny.

The last part of our show was the talent portion. I had decided to put together a talent show to perform some of our talents for our friends and host parents to see. There were people juggling, playing the piano, singing, and dancing. I performed my lyrical dance solo from senior year (yes I still have it in me because I was able to straighten my leg all the way behind my head in my scorpion) and I had many people come up to me afterwards and tell me they enjoyed my performance. The icing on the cake was probably when the folk arts teacher came up and told me I was great (HAHA, that's what you get for making me sit on a stool with fabric over my face!!!) or when my host dad told me that he never knew I could dance like that (HAHA, that's what you get when you only ask Rachel about her Indian dancing and you don't care that I can dance because it is "American" style dancing). Everyone enjoyed the performances and no one broke a leg.

Still need my sari, flowers, and more makeup