Haldi

August 6th.....the day before the wedding. My haldi ceremony was scheduled. Turmeric is said to be good for skin and it brings out the natural glow. Well, I had been to enough weekly facial apointments in the parlour I guess, and was actually not very keen to have any haldi smeared on my face. My mom too shared the same opinion and was warning all the ladies before hand to not let haldi on my face or my mehendi. I was purposely wearing a light color saree so that I could save the haldi stained saree as a souvenir.

My mami led me to the ceremony. My mom started applying haldi with mango leaves. You start from the feet to the face. All the ladies present applied haldi and I dont exactly remember who started it, but in the end I had haldi smeared all over my face inspite of me trying to avoid that. But am quite glad that I was successful in letting my mehendi stay untouched.

Haldi is supposed to be a very auspicious ceremony and after that, the bride/groom is not allowed to step out of the house, they say nazar lag jaati hain.

After taking a bath I changed into a bblue saree. This saree was given to me by my grandpa (dad's dad) after my grandmother expired (dad's mom) and I believe its their blessing and hence wanted to wear that for one of the ceremonies. We had a navagraha pooja and lunch. Before lunch there was this another small ritual called saubhagya vadha. Where there were 5 ladies seated and I had to wear a ghunghat and go in front of them and say "saubhagya vadha" ("please give me some good luck"). And whatever they serve you in your plate, you are supposed to eat. Well but at the end of the ritual there were some 5-6 puranpolis in my plate and if you ask me if I did eat all of them, well let me not disclose anything in public.

My mom then put green bangles for me. In Maharashtrian weddings, thats the wedding chuda and the bride is not supposed to remove them for few days.

It was quite a hectic pre-weddingday. Though the bride and groom arenot supposed to meet on that day, Sandeep was there at my home too :). There were lots of people in the house, and so much going on that I didnt even have time to think about the wedding next day. In the evening,JP, Jassi and Mayur arrived from Bangalore. I was busy chatting with them and my parents and Vaibhav were out to receive Sandeep's folks from Kerala and his friends. Deepashree too was with my mom and even put mehendi for Sandeep's cousin and neice.

It was quite a hectic and long day for all of us and we went to bed exhausted and in anticipation of the next "The Day".

PHOTOS: Haldi