I ignored the sound and concentrated on tossing grains of rice into the fire when instructed by the maharaj, dotting Hari’s forehead with vermilion, and carrying a coconut that had been blessed with a vermilion Hindu swastik for good luck.
It had been nearly a decade since a rough, hairy coconut rested in my palms. My parents had helped me move into my apartment in Los Angeles when I started law school and insisted on doing a religious ceremony to protect my home, including leaving a similar coconut outside the front door. The minute they left, I had pulled it inside, fearing that neighbors walking by in my heavily Jewish neighborhood might mistake the Hindu swastik for a hate symbol.
The photographer smiled at me as I descended from the mandap when directed by the maharaj. Before I could return his kind gesture, he leaned in to take a close-up of my face, leaving me disoriented, seeing dots from the harshness of the flash, so I couldn’t check out what type of camera he was using.
“Just one photo, madam,” the photographer said to me as he readjusted himself for a different angle. “Yes, please.”
Madam? I associated the word with old ladies, and this guy didn’t look much older than me.
The shutter clicked again. The dots returned.
“We can take it later, Tushar,” Indira Mami answered for me, ushering me out of the way. “Focus at the couple, yaar!” She motioned a flat hand in the direction of Hari and Laila, who were sitting patiently with the maharaj.
Without argument, Tushar took a step back. His camera was digital. He furiously snapped away while guests mingled about the wedding venue, chatting and sipping chai and hardly paying any attention to the wedding rituals being performed on the mandap. Despite all the noise around me, I focused on the repetitive clicking of his shutter and wished I were in his place. For the days before this, I’d enjoyed being the designated family photographer for the wedding events, but Indira Mami and Virag Mama insisted that someone else needed to handle the actual wedding and reception. “You must be part of the ceremonies, or no one will even know you were here!” they said.
Seeing the world through my lens for the past few days reignited something in me that had been dormant. I remembered the way it felt to concentrate on one subject and ignore everything else around me. I felt the chaos and noise fade away, replaced by the laser focus of centering on a single thing and appreciating the nuances of it. I picked up details that I’d never have noticed had I just been a guest, like the way the light refracted and reflected off objects and people as they moved. I felt like through the lens, I was able to see India anew. Distill the truth from my childhood memories. I was able to notice more of the progress that my parents had spoken about over the years, because that progress was in the people and the way they behaved, rather than the storefronts and physical objects.
Relieved that my front-of-camera wedding duties were officially over, I sank onto a cushioned bench on our family’s side of the plot. Like most weddings I’d seen in India, Hari’s took place in a spacious grassy lot. It would have been difficult to find an indoor area large enough to accommodate the more than eight hundred guests who were in attendance. In the center was the mandap where Hari and Laila would be married. It had a minaret at each corner with garlands of marigolds strung between them. On three sides around the mandap were cushioned benches for the guests. Fans faced them, whirring at high speeds, but were no match for the heat. Bright-red and shiny gold paper decorations hung from strings stretched across the expansive plot and swung haphazardly with the movement of the fans. Garlands of marigolds, roses, and jasmine flowers dangled from the strings above.
I sat in the second row of benches on the groom’s side and took a glass of filtered water from one of the waiters passing out drinks and snacks during the ceremony. It was a huge contrast to American weddings I had attended, in which people would sit with perfect posture in quiet churches, eyes locked on the couple standing with whomever was officiating the ceremony. For all the fanfare associated with Hari’s wedding, the ceremony itself was rather informal. Children ran around playing in the grass. Guests munched away on samosas, pakoras, and other fried treats. Hardly anyone paid attention to the actual wedding, including Hari’s parents. Indira Mami sat on a bench in the first row a couple seats over from me. She spooned pistachio ice cream into her mouth while chatting with my mother. It was the most relaxed I’d seen her since I had arrived.
With all the noise around us, I couldn’t really follow one conversation.
“Lovely couple. Such good height-body, no?” I heard some aunties behind me murmur.