The top portion of this photograph was supposedly the the marriage area The marriage area was decorated by the members of the house. Sofa from the house and a few chairs kept on the sides. To describe the wedding area…2 benches covered with sarees, pendal put up and decorated with color paper, balloon & silk sarees. Both the bride and the groom pray at the temple and come towards the wedding area. And another set of band come to collect him with an umbrella over his head, take him to the temple which is there in his house compound. Suddenly a whole lot of crowd, his uncles, elders of the village, all the aged men around surround him and he gets busy taking blessings from each one of them by touching their feet. The shirt collar has been tipped with haldi. The boy we see is ready in cream shirt and silk mundu.
Suddenly we heard some drums and shahnai, got to know the girl has arrived the entrance of the gate. We hurried ourselves to get ready and rushed to his house at 8.30 to see the groom still not dressed for the wedding! We were asked to eat breakfast (served in one plate)- 15-20 chapati sized sweet pooris(don’t remember the name) and some namkeens.
What sort of marriage are we going to see is what we wondered. Morning 9.00 was his wedding and at 7.30 we again see him walking in the house with a t-shirt and mundu. Such clean walking path…clean houses, clean roads…the roads there could have put our Bangalore roads to shame. After dinner, we were taken to some relatives house to sleep. The marriage was not to take place in a hall, but in the grooms house and the whole village was going to attend! We kept wondering how things will be managed and thought that the place is going to be a mess. Another surprise for us…the dinner was cooked by their own people and the rice was cooked by the male members of the family. The steps seemed quite similar to Bihu dance. Evening was welcomed with drinks(locally made.and surprised us), eateries and badaga dance. Then we got to know that Badaga’s are known for their hospitality. Everyone was eager to talk to us and make us feel comfortable. The groom took us to his house…we were greeted with smiles from his family members, uncles, aunts.
We had some stares coming our way, since we (ladies) were dressed in comfy jeans and t-shirts. It was nice to everyone knowing each other in that village. Another thing we got to know was, the girl and guy could not be from the same village and anyone marrying outside the badaga community would be treated as an outcast and never allowed inside the village.
He told us that initially there were more marriages in line, but then the village elders got together to decide on which ones to finally have, coz the whole village would be there for any marriage that would take place in the village. Three marriages were to take place the next day in his village. It was beautiful, surrounded by Tea Estates. And here he was taking us around to show his village. We(self, husband, 2 of my friends) were all surprised to see him walking around, when in Blore, a groom or the bride would be busy getting a facial done or getting his things ready for the marriage. We reached their house the previous evening too see him walking in some red t-shirt and checks mundu. This time the weather was good, not too cold.very pleasant. May 2007 A friend was to get married in his village, outskirts of Ooty in midst of Nilgiris mountains.