Day Four – the throwing of yellow goo

Wednesday saw the Haldi ceremony, which I knew involved an awful lot of yellow goo being rubbed into the faces, arms legs etc of the bride and groom but I hadn’t realized quite how involved it all was. We arrived at V’s parents house, the location for the ceremony and I was quickly wrapped up in a yellow sari. No timid yellow colour this, but rather a particularly fetching shade of luminous banana, which looked pretty dreadful against my white skin, but a lot better once the haldi had been rubbed in. Haldi is basically turmeric, which is ground and mixed with water to form a thick gooey paste, and apparently does wonders for the skin in terms of brightening it and making it glow. It seemed to be pretty resilient stuff, and I was a bit concerned that I’d end up tripping down the aisle like a giant banana in a white dress, but I was assured by everyone that it would wash off in a couple of days and as this was only Wednesday, it seemed safe to plunge into the mayhem. All of the English guests were wearing white kurta pyjamas and looking like members of some weird cult, and they all lined up to take their turns in covering Vivek and I with haldi. Before they were given access to the gloopy bowlful however, the four sisters demanded money from them, in an elaborate ritual which saw people dancing around with notes, hiding money in pockets, pretending to give a few rupees and then whipping out a few thousand, and generally participating in the ritual. Everyone present got a good chance to throw some slop over us, by the end we were covered from head to foot, and Vivek had even had his trousers cut off and haldi rubbed into his every crevice.
After everyone had taken their turn with the haldi, we went to shower. After scrubbing myself all over I managed to get the bright yellow to fade to a jaundiced shade (in fact I looked exactly how I did when I did have jaundice except without the dodgy liver) and as I changed into yet another, prettier yellow sari, I admired my all over yellow tinge which I hoped would soon fade to the healthy glow I’d been promised.