Anand Weds Heena

Okay so this is the third time that I am writing this blog post because my computer is being totally ridiculous and shutting down/restarting its self without asking me! ANYWAY. In the last week or so I've been doing quite a bit of traveling! It's been great because it gives me something to do while I'm in this odd limbo period where I'm not really sure what I should be doing with myself until I start work. I got my start date confirmed for Mindvalley so I will begin working in mid-January. This is a little frustrating because I really don't like sitting around and anticipating the start of something. It makes me anxious/nervous/unsure so I'd much rather be thrown into something so that I don't really have time to contemplate the intricate details of what I decided to do! This limbo period thingy is exactly what happened before I left for East Africa and was at McGill attending a week of safety sessions and sleeping on my couch in my apartment while my sublet made my room into her own. Not. Fun.

On Dec. 20th, I left with my cousins to go to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia on the island of Java, for my cousin Heena's wedding. My Dad's sister lives in Surabaya in Indonesia but Heena moved to Jakarta to be with her husband (then boyfriend), Anand (they were dating for 9 years!). The flight from KL to Jakarta is only 1.5 hours but given my luck when it comes to traveling, there were obviously some problems. For example, remember that flight I checked into 2 weeks early? Well wen I tried to print my boarding pass at the Kiosk I was told (electronically) that "Someone may have checked into your flight for you. Please check with them for your boarding pass". THANKS FOR THE INFO, AIR ASIA. So with 15 mins to go before the counter closed, I had to RUSH to talk to an Air Asia rep who was finally able to print me out a boarding pass for a flight that I was probably the first person to check into. Then, for some reason, our 1.5 hr flight was delayed for 1 hr after we already boarded the plane :(.

Crazy traffic on the highway

When we finally reached Jakarta and got into our transportation, the traffic that we hit was ABSOLUTELY UNREAL. I knew that Jakarta had a lot of traffic but this was something like I had never experienced before. On the highway, the cars were "arranged" in utter chaos. People were using the narrow shoulder as a lane to drive on and every time we tried to switch lanes it was like playing a game of chicken to see how far in our car could go. My brother's taxi fully got HIT on the way to the hotel. Sumira, Tasha and I started playing a game where we chose random landmarks and guessed how long it would take to reach them. I kid you not, to move 200 meters it took about 10 mins. Our journey of approximately 30 kilometers took 3.5 hours. To get an idea of how fast we were moving I will describe it in Canadian cities: Let's say we are driving to Barrie, Ontario from Toronto. Barrie is about 100 km away from Toronto and takes about 1 hr to get there under normal circumstances. If we were to travel at the same rate as it took to get from the airport to our hotel in Jakarta, it would take us about 11 hours to get to Barrie because of TRAFFIC.  We finally reached the hotel where I was soon after reunited with my parents and my brother (my mother came out of the taxi totally flabbergasted by the traffic). All my aunt could say to me regarding the traffic was “Welcome to Jakarta J”.

I met with Heena who told me that the first event was a night out at a supper-club that she used to manage. My brother's reaction to this was to lie face-down on the bed and refuse to go because of the traffic. But once we got onto the mini bus, we saw that my cousin's boss had hired us a POLICE ESCORT to the club so that we didn't have to get stuck in traffic. AGAIN - Welcome to Jarkarta!!

There was a massive round-about outside the window of our room and every day we would just watch the traffic build and build to the point where the traffic just came to a standstill and the police had to come in to direct traffic to get it moving again. It was pretty funny.

Morning

Afternoon

The hotel its self was the most historical in Jakarta and had THE BEST BATHROOMS. The toilets were automatic with motion sensors  AND were heated! The bathrooms were big enough that we had our dance practices in there. But what was puzzling about the hotel was that every time it started to pour, the lobby would literally flood. You would think that the hotel would know how to handle the tropical rains of Jakarta, but no. Water came through all the light fixtures one particular day that the streets seriously flooded (all I can say is thank god it happened on Dec 22^nd because it had happened on the 21^st I would have started freaking out).

Okay so enough about the traffic/hotel in Jakarta and more about the wedding.

Before you continue reading press PLAY on this song below (while reading) to get the full Indian wedding experience:

The first night of wedding festivities was tons of fun – we kicked it off with A NUMBER of jagger bombs and all-night dancing. 

Our parents had their own dinner and we were at the “youngsters party”, but my parents and my aunts and uncles being themselves (we are the cool side/party side of the family) found a way to join us after their dinner and danced and drank with us all night!

Maaaaa!

The next night was Heena’s mendhi ceremony where I had the time of my life instragramming photos, after which we danced all night. The mendhi ceremony is where the bride covers her hands and feet in mendhi and leaves it on as long as possible. The darker the stain on her skin after she takes it off, the more her husband loves her.

Something that was kinda strange at the mendhi was that every table set up had a sign on it that said Senior Citizens. I thought it was a mistake but apparently, the custom in Jakarta to eat standing up and set up tables for only the old people to eat at. We sat down at the Senior Citizens table anyways.

The night after was Heena’s Ghari ceremony and truthfully, I am not 100 percent sure what that involves but what I can tell you is that everything that is worn at this ceremony must be collected and burned (that means your underwear, your clothes and any hairs that may even come off in the brush while you are getting your hair done). These things all symbolize your bachelor(ette)hood which is ending. This ceremony also involves honouring the bride’s parents and celebrating the marriage of their daughter and it is a lot of fun!

One of the things you need for this ceremony is 7 married women

The pundit doing his thang

Since the family was finally all together were also got the chance to snap some pics of us all together, which only happens once every 3 or 4 years. And then obviously we danced and drank so more and didn’t go to sleep until 4 am.

All the cousins on the dad's side minus 5 

The final night was the wedding ceremony and reception. Heena looked beautiful in her wedding sari which weighed something like 10 pounds and her dog even made a surprise visit looking very spiffy in his suit.

The reception was carnival themed and it was beautifully decorated with lots of things to do!

This meant enough balloons to keep the young ones entertained while the rest of us took pictures and ate.

My cousin married into the biggest Sindhi family in Jakarta and so there were about 750 guests at her reception and the drinking and dancing went LAAAAATEEEE into the night.

Yes, I changed by outfit.

Another tradition is for the girl's side to steal the shoes from the groom and hide them until he pays us money so that he can have them back. We checked them in to the Luggage area with the concierge. Unfortunately OUR GROOM didn't WANT HIS SHOES BACK so we didn't really have a good bargaining tool.....

All in all it was a really wonderful 4 days where I got to spend tons of time with family all together in one place! Out of my dad’s 8 siblings, 6 of them were present and only 4 of my cousins were missing – that is pretty incredible since my family flew in from London, Toronto, New Jersey, Lagos, Bangalore and Kuala Lumpur to all be together.

Going for a swim

I've also been consistently impressed and amazed at the variety of food that is available in Asian countries. You get the Asian stuff as well as the north american so whatever you are craving it will, without a doubt, be found at your local food court. Below you will see Chirag having baked beans, chicken bacon, and dim sum in one meal, for breakfast.

Jalesh eating an omelette, mashed potatoes and sushi.

Dad doing what he does best (which is posting pictures things he does to facebook)

(Left to Right) My dad, his sister, his sister, his second cousin and her husband and his sister