Wedding Ceremony: Morning Pooja

   The morning of wedding ceremony we had a pooja before the actual wedding ceremony. Pooja just means a religious ceremony or ritual. This particular pooja was a symbolic ritual of preparing us for the marriage ceremony. It is a family-based ritual and typically Deepal and I would celebrate it separately with our own families. My family obviously wouldn't have a clue by ourselves, though, so we celebrated it together. The best way to describe this ritual is good-natured chaos. Everyone crowds around and tells each other what to do, arguing about how and who and what. I don't speak Hindi yet, and neither does my family so we stand or sit around trying to follow what 3 or 4 different people are telling us to do. My mother was a saint, keeping a cheery face and following as best she could. At the beginning of the process Deepal's family chose one person who would be our official translator so it wouldn't be too confusing. But that idea lasted literally about 5 minutes. And then... chaos..  good-natured, of course. ;)

This is the staging area for the pooja and wedding ceremony.

 

And this is the seating area for the guests facing the stage.

Tools of the trade: turmeric and other stuff they use in the pooja. Although I only ever saw them use the turmeric (yellow stuff), the red stuff, and the rice.

So there's a lot of things about the ceremonies that I still don't know or really understand. Sometimes I would ask Deepal during the rituals what different things meant but more often than not he didn't know either. Therefore I suggest you take my account with a grain of salt and remember that it cannot be considered religiously accurate. 

 So here we are all gathered around. Deepal and I are each in front of our own little table with a silver pot. The pot is important somehow, but I don't know how. We never actually touched it or did anything to it that I can remember except after the very end of the wedding when our sisters took the pots home.. to do something with them... yup.

Then, first things first, you gotta put the tikka on:
Mom had Jean do all the tikkas the night before at the Henna Function, and then she was kicking herself because she didn't get any practice for today.  It's not so hard, though, right? Stick some red stuff on your finger, put a dot of it on the forehead, stick some rice to it and then throw the left over rice (already in your hand) over their head. If you don't have any rice left in your hand then pretend to throw some over their head. They'll never know. The rice didn't stick to their head? No problem, it falls off anyway, just tell them it fell off already. :)

Then you gotta give the ceremonial basket of fruit and nuts:

Next comes the turmeric. In the olden days they used to cover the bride in turmeric from head to toe. It works like an antiseptic and it kept the bride from getting sick from all the guests. Nowadays they just do a symbolic bit of turmeric on your feet, hands, and cheeks. And it's important that you brush it upwards on to said feet, hands, and cheeks. ..not sure why, though:

Different women take turns putting the turmeric on the bride. This is Dipti's mother-in-law whom I call Mummy G. She is my second mother in India, and I couldn't ask for a sweeter or more wonderful Mummy. She has actually played the role of my mother in a couple of different ceremonies because my mom couldn't be there, and she really feels like another mother to me. :) 

I am blessed to have so many mothers in my life. Joy was my first second mom, and she's certainly been around long enough to think twice about accepting the title. hehe. I am so happy she came all the way to India to celebrate with me. 

Once everyone took turns putting turmeric on me, then Deepal's family went through the same steps with him. First he got his tikka, and then his mother gave him the ceremonial basket of fruits and nuts:

Next came the turmeric:

Hehe, at some point the red stuff from the tikka got mixed into the turmeric and Deepal looked like he'd been eating some very messy hotdogs with ketchup and mustard. :)

            After they put the turmeric on the both of us they brought some water and kind of washed it off. It doesn't come off easily. I admit I was a little stressed about having to change clothes, wash my face, and re-do my make-up for the wedding ceremony. Especially because it was something of a surprise that I was going to have my cheeks stained yellow. ;) Shortly after taking the following pictures, Deepal and I were off to change as quickly as possible for the next part of the ceremony because we were already running late. Which is normal in India, really. EVERYONE went to change clothes actually. Everyone except my family because getting them into one saree for the day was enough. ;) This morning pooja started about 2 hours late because there was only one woman to dress my mother-in-law, mom, sister, Joy, and me. I'm not sure if she dressed anyone else. She may have. Next up: The Wedding Procession (and then after that the ceremony)