no time for no

I really don't know where to start describing such a surreal and outwordly experience as an Indian wedding. Three days have passed in a blur of ceremonies, blessings, chants, and rice flung to the left and right.

I was immediately made to feel welcome at Pan's village, which basically consisted of a bunch of houses clustered together at the leafy and green valley floor of the Kangra Valley. My chaperone and translater for the whole event was one of Pan's uncles, Mr Chohan, who in his younger days had been a commanding officer in the fierce elite troops Black Cat, India's answer to the USA's Seal and British SAS. He was stationed in Amritsar during the "Bluestar"-operation of the Golden Temple in -84, and since learning of this I simply referred to him as "Mr Black Cat", which made everybody laugh.


Everybody was more or less introduced to me as as "my auntie", or "my brother", subtleties as "cousin" or "the wife of my uncles's cousin" being lost in translation. I never really managed to figure out who was related how, apart from that the whole village seemed to stem from the same bloodline. I was given my own room at Pan's uncles house, whose wife kept the place absolutely immaculate, including the bathrooms! (to my surprise...)


Apart from Mr Black Cat, only a few of the men spoke a little bit of English, the women compensated for this by simply shouting louder to me, as if this would break the language barrier. Most of the time I just smiled and shook my head in any direction. Everytime I looked up there was a woman or a child standing in front of me, offering me water, chai, roti or fresh buffalo milk neatly placed on a brick. It just didn't seem appropriate to go, "thank you for the lovely glass of milk, but actually, I think that Monsieur Pasteur would have some objections". I just had to take my friendship offerings, forget all I know about giardia and other waterborne parasites and drink up.