Evie's Escapades: Amritsar

Despite all the amount of reading I did online, and gathering advice from people who has been to India, nothing quite prepared me for the real deal except for being there myself. The symphony honks of automobiles is the most memorable thing for me by far - where the horn is used as a polite way of informing others of its presence. For someone who just sat through a 6hour flight, it was pretty unnerving to sit through a bumpy ride to Jalandhar, which was a 3 hour ride in total. Geographically, Jalandhar is only about 90km away from Amritsar but the small roads and heavy traffic made our progress slow and painful.

I travelled with a party of 4, all of us are members of a choir called Vox Camerata in Singapore. Our purpose of going to Amritsar is to attend a wedding of a very dear friend of ours, VIvek, who has since left the choir for other pursuits.

The wedding celebration is of the most massive, and lavish scale I have ever seen and attended. The celebration lasted over 4 days, from 2nd to 5th of December. We arrived at Amritsar on the December 2nd and missed the first part of the wedding.

The following text is taken from the programme booklet Vivek left for us in our hotel rooms, informing us of the time and significance of each event taking place. How thoughtful of him!

Shagun
THe bride's family comes forth to present gifts to the groom before the commencement of the wedding in an elaborate ceremony.

Chunni
The groom's family showers gifts & blessing onto the bride prior to the wedding

Sangeet
A fun filed night of music, masti & entertainment where family and friends gather for merry-making.

Shera Bandi
The groom is dressed up in the wedding attire. A turban is tied ceremoniously and a curtain of flowers/beads covers the face of the groom. The groom is now ready for the wedding procession.

Barat
The groom mounts a white horse and his sisters tie sacred thread to the horse, while his sisters-in-law apply 'surma' to the groom. The groom's wedding entourage also includes an elaborate band.

Doli
The bride mounts an elaborate palanquin for departure to her new home.

In the subsequent posts I will (attempt to) recall the events and write about it. The reason why I haven't been writing about the trip is because too much happened over the few days we were there, I don't really know how to chronicle this trip at all.