Of Mehendis and Shaadis

I've been busy attending friends' mehendis and shaadis in Karachi. The arrangements are more lavish and creative every time. Yesterday's mehendi theme was bright pink and baby blue (it used to be green, orange and yellow eons ago but I guess times are a'changing!). The girls from bride's side were wearing peshwazs (long flowing frocks with skinny trousers underneath) and the girls from the groom's side were in ghagras (long flowing skirts with heavily worked blouses). The guys on both sides wore kurta shalwars...

The invitation said 9:30 pm so my friend and I arrived around 10:30 pm, thinking we'd be fashionably late. Alas, NO ONE was there except for the bride's siblings and immediate family... so we sat around and listened to bollywood music playing in the background. They played this song



at least 5 times in the space of an hour. For anyone who's watched the movie, this song is played when the girl (Zubaida) is being forced to marry someone against her will and tries to commit suicide by shooting herself in the head with her dad's gun :p Now, why would you play that at anyone's wedding?!

At long last, the groom arrived at 11:30 pm singing and dancing with his friends... It was funny though, because he had to stop and pose at multiple intervals for the video and video guys made him repeat the moves a couple of times :)

The bride arrived at midnight in a doli (a wooden box/carriage decorated with flowers carried by the bride's brothers and cousins). The groom was polite enough to come down from the stage and receive her (some grooms are lazy, and remain sitting, waiting for the bride to come to them :p). After that, they had a couple of dance performances but the diyas kept blowing out because of the wind so they had to do without. At that point, I was exhausted and my hair was getting frizzy thanks to the humidity, so I went home, had a sandwich and went to bed :)