Weekends II

Dang, I had some witty title thought up this morning but it's gone now. Gotta agree with Marissa on this one.

Last weekend we went to the Mughal Gardens at Rashrapati Bhavan, which is the president's residence. A bit like a visit to the Rose Garden. The gardens are only open to the public for a few weeks in the spring, so we went. The gardens were beautiful, really stunning. But because of security concerns you can't bring cameras. There's nothing that grates on Phil quite like being told he can't do something, so we spent a good portion of the outing pointing out to each other the futility of such restrictions. I mean if you really want to bring a camera for some nefarious purpose you're not going to be stopped by a few pat searches (though the lady was a little mystified by the underwire, so they are pretty thorough). Besides, Google Earth? Anyway, I digress, beautiful gardens, you'll just have to take my word for it.



Then the wedding. The invitation said wedding 7pm, reception 8pm. We got there at 7:45, slightly nervous that we might miss something. We were probably the fourth group there. Gave us lots of chance to take pictures of the scene: the full on stage (real flowers, I checked). The paan table, the fruit stand. By the time the groom arrived (who is a co-worker of Phil's) our boys were done, and we slipped out about 11pm. Never really saw what the throne N borrowed was for, hope that if we cursed their marriage by sitting on it cultural ignorance will count for something.

I wore another saree. It was too short. A few different women filled me in (Gee, thanks). I'd hitched it up so there was no gap between the blouse and skirt. You don't want to see my very white, post-two-nine-pound-babies stomach, you just don't. I have much better ankles, believe me. There were a few other foreigners in sarees. They had strapless blouses, which I've never actually seen on an Indian woman. I wonder if anyone told them their shirts were missing?