India 2023

My cousin Villy reached out in early August to let me know Healy is engaged and will be getting married in India in January 2024. I hadn’t been to India since 2011/2012 so I decided to go. I recall going for a run with my friend Hannah that day and bringing it up as a trip idea. She expressed interest in the trip so I began planning the trip. India isn’t the easiest country to navigate so I knew we’d be relying heavily on my family. To make it worse, I don’t even know the language. I can understand my family members mostly through context but it doesn’t work when a person speaks quickly. Neither of us had much PTO so we decided on a 10 day trip from January 13th through the 23rd. The wedding itself was going to take place in Surat. My dad’s college roommate, Viresh, lives in Surat so I arranged for us to stay with him. Our journey took 24 hours total. The trip was composed of a 14 hour flight, an 8 hour layover and then another 2 hour flight. We decided to land in Surat to save time.

The 14 hour flight was not as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, we both had the realization that we should probably spend more time relaxing. I couldn’t remember the last time I was away from the internet and such for 14 hours. The layover was in Delhi because there is a direct flight from DC to Delhi. Upon landing, we went through customs, passports stamped, and had our fingerprints scanned. The layover itself was 8 hours so we had plenty of time to kill. We spent most of it walking because our legs were stiff from the long flight. Toward the end of the layover, we tried dosas and had chai before boarding the plane to Surat.

Viresh kaka and Jayesh fuwa picked us up from the airport. Viresh kaka drove us through the city on the way to his home. He pointed out a couple of things along the way but we were both pretty tired from our 24 hour journey. When we got to Viresh kaka’s house, we had dinner and then went for a short walk. It was a nice evening and we got to see the outside of two temples. In the morning we took a short run across the Surat bridge and back. Jayesh fuwa had arranged for us to take a taxi to Baroda. My dad and his whole family were in Baroda selling my grandfather’s house.

Day 1 – 3: Sunday the 14th – Tuesday the 16th

We were lucky to land in India the same weekend as the Uttarayan kite festival. I didn’t try flying the kites much myself but it was entertaining to see everyone flying kites from their terraces. When it got dark, people started lighting fireworks. My dad’s side of the family clearly knows how to fly kites.

The second day in Baroda was spent with my cousin Villy and family friend Priyam. They took us to the museum and the zoo. The museum was more interesting than I remember. There were a lot of things from other countries such as a mummy, paintings from Japan and Chinese carvings. I was not a fan of the ivory art for obvious reasons. The zoo wasn’t huge but I did find it funny that they had deer and pigeon exhibits. In America, I see these two animals almost every day.

The third day in Baroda was mostly spent clearing the plaster from this mosaic my grandfather had made back in the 80s. It looked very different back then but I was glad we were able to uncover this much of it. In the evening we went dress shopping and had dinner at Priyam’s house. After dinner Priyam took us for a walk around a little park next to his house. It was a cute little park with a path that circled around a small field and playground. He challenged the two of us to a race and Hannah won pretty easily.

Day 4: The Statue of Unity

The Statue of Unity is the tallest statue in the world. I had never heard of it until my uncle mentioned it. He arranged for us all to visit the statue that Wednesday. Standing next to the foot made us feel like ants. The elevator inside the statue took us to the statue’s upper torso. The view from up there was pretty. After visiting the statue, we went to another zoo and then took a ferry ride.

Day 5: Back to Surat for Henna

We returned to Surat the next morning. Healy’s family had hired henna artists to draw designs on the hands and or feet of wedding guests. My grandmother and aunt only wanted me to have henna on my palm. Guys don’t typically do it so they wanted it to be less noticeable. But it was fun

Day 6: Visiting Mahi’s Village and Family

It was a nice little trip to Mahi’s village Wadi. Her family was nice enough to cook lunch for us and then take us on a short hike. We even got to ride a motorcycle with Mahi’s father. The group of children pictured above ran away screaming as soon as I pointed my camera at them.

The Wedding Garba and Hannah’s Birthday

After coming back from Mahi’s house, we went to Healy’s Garba. It was pretty fun but I wasn’t able to figure out the foot movements at all. That went on for about an hour or two. Then Jayesh fuwa comes up to me and asks me how to spell Hannah’s name. I didn’t realize they had gotten a cake but the question made it obvious. He hilariously ended up just getting two cakes, one with Hana on it and Hannah on the other. Indian culture usually feeds cake to the birthday as shown.

Day 7: The Wedding

The wedding was such a long day. Indian weddings are a lot of fun but I was so dead afterwards. The first part involved covering the bride in turmeric.

The next part was the actual ceremony. I didn’t realize the whole town was invited. They invited 213 families to the wedding and expected about 700 guests.

As with any Indian celebrations, I ended up more involved than I expected. Clearly I knew nothing about Indian weddings. The next day we went to a Punjabi restaurant and Viresh kaka dropped us off at the airport.