Wedding season!

Pictures!

It's been an amazing week. (Yes, despite the last two entries)

I spent Valentine's Day with Prats' parents, which was lovely. It was so cool to talk with Prathama on the phone while standing in her house, with her parents. And Upa, too! I miss you all you lovely ladies so much.

After V-Day followed the series of weddings and shopping trips with Piya. I CNG'ed to Gulshan (this is one of the ritzy areas of town, where most of the foreigners live. Sidebar: I say ritzy, but don't think quite New York) to meet Piya at her work a couple of nights to go shopping for saris and check out the boutiques in Gulshan's Pink City. I ended up buying this beautiful royal blue and turquouse sari from Aarong with gorgeous gold embroidery details. It's more of a traditional design, which is good because it's something that I'll keep for a very long time. There's so many ins and outs of Bangladeshi (and South Asian in general) fashion, it is completely fascinating. Piya has fantastic taste and was the perfect designer: she taught me how the thin border saris are fashionable now, how the sheer silk with emblazoned design was all the rage a couple of years ago, showed me her stylish halter top sari blouse and backless blouse--oh, the scandal!--and taught me about mixing blouse/sari colors and designing salwar kamiz's to be made by the tailor. There's block print, versus patterns that are woven into the material, versus this design and that. There are fashion shows and big designers (will Bibi Russell be the Bangladeshi Coco Chanel?)--it is all incredible.

We first attended the bobhat, or wedding reception of one of Piya's close cousins. Here, weddings go on for four days...first, there is the bride's holud, then the groom's holud, then the actual ceremony, and then the reception, on four separate, usually consecutive, nights.

The bobhat was beautiful--it was held in an events facility in Dhanmondi, the outside of the building was covered in sparkling mini lights. As we stepped up the stairs, we were greeted by groups of women in shining, colorful saris and men in Western suits and ties (the men usually wear Western dress to the reception, and traditional dress to the other ceremonies). The stage for the bride was set with flowers and ribbons and gold. After a bit, she walked in surrounded by a swarm of cameras and bright lights. She was decked out in this ornate red salwar kamiz set with so much gold covering every inch from her neck to her chest that you could see neither skin nor fabric. She has to wear all the gold that her relatives gave her as wedding gifts--if she didn't wear someone's jewelry, that person would be offended. She delicately sat on the stage and one by one, we all went up to take a picture with her and wish her well.

After followed the very rich food--rice with mutton (?), chicken tikka, this spicy-salty-sweet-sour yogurt drink to help with digestion, and sweet rice for dessert. It was delicious. We mingled for a bit, met a relative of the Rahmans who helped pioneer the Comilla Model of development, and incredible woman... and then everyone wandered out.

A couple of nights later followed the holud for the cousin of one of Piya's closest friends. The holud is the most fun part, Piya assured me, with lots of food, tradition, and the best part, dancing! The bride and groom have their respective holuds--this is where everyone rubs turmeric (that pungent yellow stuff) on the their to make it brighter and fairer. Nowadays, this is all done at a salon, but symbolically everyone goes to put a bit of turmeric on the groom's forehead and then feeds him sweets. The stage was beautiful with a backdrop of marigolds, and the groom looked very handsome in an emerald green punjabi. After all the turmeric rubbing and eating was done, the band started playing fun upbeat Hindi pop and the dancefloor started to fill. Bhangra dancing is so much fun--there was this old couple who could really break it down! So cute.

It was a beautiful night-- the whole ceremony was held on the rooftop of the groom's apartment, and it was very pretty to look out over the sparkling lights of Dhanmondi. Again, not quite a New York skyline but lovely just the same.

My words really don't do this all justice, though-- I will upload pictures once I figure out whether I'll be charged exorbitant amounts. Don't even get me started on internet here. :)

Suffice to say it was a wonderful, wonderful week, albeit one sans internet. More to come on hip coffee lounges and Language Day with Shireen Miss's school for slum children, the resolution of the data problem (I am actually very satisfied with how Zaman and Mostofa responded, and I think we can make this happen, though that day with the lab ladies was truly terrible), the climate change conference with the Canadian which was intensely eye-opening in unexpected ways, and--who would have guessed--Mexican food in Bangladesh!

Hugs.