A South Indian Soiree

I had quite forgotten, what a South Indian wedding can do to you.
Two weddings in quick succession, were enough to tire me of the soft rustle of Kancheevaram Sarees- not that I'd stop hoarding them, now ;-) and banana leaf feasts.

A South Indian wedding, like any other of its ilk, elevates the subtle act of people watching, to undisguised proportions. Each woman, is reveling in the variegated display of jewels and silks and probably conjuring up images of her next must-have bauble/saree.
No self respecting "native" at one of these South Indian weddings shall be caught dead in anything but a Kancheevaram, unless of course, you are a man or a child.

I like, "the steeped in culture" feel of eating the wedding feast on a banana leaf, but, I cannot manage the mad scramble, to gulp my meal, before it decides to flow out the central rib of the banana leaf. For someone used, to holding a plate of food in one hand for eternity, perched, on the couch, staring at TV or reading, the nimble agility that is required of the banana leaf is a tough ask.

The South Indian wedding ,though I make it sound like that, is not all silk and food and plantain. Agreed, we don't usually make a song and dance out of much,wedding or otherwise, but we do have some interesting rituals preceding and following a wedding.

For the first time, I saw a little song and dance sequence as an optional pre-wedding ritual, where, Radha is married to Krishna, and devotees organize a mock dance competition to honour the Lord Krishna. What was most interesting was, only men, partook in this competition and these, men were not young, except maybe in spirit. The entire sequence, is enacted with a rice pestle, as a prop. This, perhaps because, the child Krishna, was bound to this pestle, as punishment for stealing butter.
Cool huh?