Who is to be paid respect to on your birthday?

Today was a birthday of one of my Indian relatives. Acording to Indian traditions, they bow to elders (especially to parents) on this occasion in order to seek their blessings. As long as nowadays relatives may live in other cities or even countries, they call them and make a bow over the phone.When people bow to the elder they utter something which means “I bow to you” or “Bowing to you”in their own language. For example, in Gujarati it translates to Page Laagu Chhu.The common words that comes as a reply means “Many blessings to you”  or “May you always be happy” in Gujarati it translates to Khub khub aasheervad and Khub khush raho respectively. On personal meeting a gift may follow after the blessings, usually in the form of money, then the total sum should not end in "0", thus one coin is always there. When my husband was a small boy on the day of his birthday he started  early from home to visit all his elder relatives to get as much such "blessings"  as possible.

First trip to India

Needless to say I was thinking about traveling to India, but after browsing in the Internet and looking though all the tourist reviews I gave up that idea. But my pen friend from India had a really tempting offer to be a guest at the Indian wedding. Apart from this he proposed to travel to other places for sightseeing. So I made up my mind and went to India on my vacations.

December 6, 2008

 My first day in India. I arrived early in Delhi. I had to take a domestic flight from Delhi to reach Ahmedabad, where my friend met me and we went to Vododara by car. On the motorway there were booths for paying fares, where traffic officers gave sweets along with the change. On our arrival we had little time to get prepared before the wedding began. After checking in at the hotel with an interesting name “Kalyan” meaning wellbeing, prosperity, we went to buy ethnic clothes for me.

The shop seemed to be small but the variety of clothes there was huge because all the walls were cramped with colorful layers of clothes. One can spend there hours sitting on comfortable low seats with cushions watching how shop assistants unwrap one packet after another.

So after all preparations we were on the spot. It was a wide ground in the schoolyard covered with decorated tent to protect from the scorching sun. As my friend told me there should be about 300 people where the majority was relatives. Men were dressed casually but women were fantastic in colorful saris with lots of jewellery and bangles on their hands gathered in a unique design to match colors of clothes. Their hands and even palms were also painted in natural colors of henna.