{"id":710,"date":"2017-08-04T17:09:53","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T17:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mejindia2017.wordpress.com\/?p=100"},"modified":"2017-08-04T17:09:53","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T17:09:53","slug":"reception-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/?p=710","title":{"rendered":"Reception Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visitors began trickling in on Saturday morning. First came both aunts and uncles from Mervin’s mom’s side. They spent the morning making mutton curry, which we ate for lunch. It was really spicy! But some of the best mutton I’ve had. Here, mutton generally means goat meat rather than sheep.<\/p>\n

Two of Dr. Johnsingh’s former students also came by in the morning to wish us well, since they were not able to attend the reception.<\/p>\n

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Mervin went out during the day to work on getting some government paperwork completed. I’d been in the bedroom reading and napping. Suddenly Mervin came in and called out in alarm “there’s a monkey on the table!” I had no idea what to do, other than I knew the monkey chasing stick was in the room, so I grabbed it and tossed it out the door. They said to close the door, so I did, and in the end never saw the monkey. It stole a mango off the table and sauntered out the door. The sliding door to the living room had been left open, which was how it had climbed in.<\/p>\n

Later in the afternoon, the reverend from St. Mark’s Cathedral came to the house to give us a blessing. He couldn’t stay very long because he had other calls to make, but we all said a prayer, and he gave us a Bible as a gift with our names inscribed in the front.<\/p>\n

The hotel was of the sort that aspires toward business class, but perhaps came up a tad short in the budget. Serviceable and decent, but lacking in the details. Still, it had a nice big room for the reception, set up with a stage, some tables, and plenty of chairs. Mervin’s neighbor Mamtha was very kind in helping us arrange everything at the hotel, and she decorated the stage for us with some flowers and the Mervin with Elizabeth sign that had been outside the apartment earlier.<\/p>\n

Why the stage? Normally at Indian weddings, the couple sit on the stage, and then all of the guests take turns coming onto the stage, giving their gifts, and then having their photo taken with the couple. With weddings here commonly having hundreds of guests that quickly becomes exhausting.<\/p>\n

We were expecting around 100 guests, a much more reasonable sized crowd, but didn’t really like the idea of sitting on a stage up above everyone else. There also wasn’t much clarity about how things were supposed to proceed, since the whole event had grown larger than the small family social hour we had first planned.<\/p>\n

When we arrived a little before 7, the time listed on the invitation, we were the only people there along with Mamtha and her family. About 8 or 9 rows of chairs were arranged audience style in front of the stage, so we sat in the front row and waited for people to arrive.<\/p>\n

Slowly, people began to trickle in. We greeted them at the door, and had pictures taken as people wanted them. After the first group of family arrived, it quickly became clear that rather than a family event, this was more of a class reunion for Dr. Johnsingh’s former students. A fascinating variety of people showed up who were all involved in wildlife research, and who threatened Mervin with childhood stories of life at the wildlife institute where he grew up. It would have been lovely to talk with them longer, but by 7:30 the trickle of guests had become a stream, and we could only quickly shake hands before moving on to the next guest.<\/p>\n

Finally around 8 the flow of guests ended, and we all sat down for speeches. Three different wildlife researchers spoke, sometimes even a little about us. Mervin’s uncle said a prayer, and then Mervin gave an impromptu speech since no one had told him to prepare one (it came out great anyway), and then it was time for dinner.<\/p>\n

In the back of the reception hall, there was an opening to a serving area, where vegetarian food was arranged buffet style around the room. When we finally made our way back there plenty of food was still left, and it was all excellent. The best dish was braised mushrooms with almost a Mongolian Beef flavor to them. There were different types of curries, rices, and South Indian flat bread (more like a crepe than a naan).<\/p>\n

After dinner people started to trickle back out, and by about 9:30 we were free to return home.<\/p>\n