I figured why the Indian brides appear shy with their heads bowed down on their wedding day. I did too on my wedding day. Given that this wasn't an arranged marriage and that the groom wouldn't escape if he found out that I was not a traditional shy Indian bride, I had no reason to feel compelled to be *shy*. So no pressure of any sort. However, there I was ... looking & behaving like any bride I had seen. As a kid when I saw weddings I often wondered if the bride wasn't curious to lift her head up & look around, especially at the groom, after all in a typical arranged marriage you would expect high levels of anxiety. Even a kid knows that!

Nobody told me, and may be I am disturbing some layer of something somewhere in the whole Indian matrimony experience thing...by saying some of this, but here it goes. So, in my case I had to start getting dressed at 7.00 am for a 9.00 o'clock scheduled wedding that started after 10.00 am or so. Wait, I didn't have a watch on me, but that is what it felt like. I had some professionals help me with my costume, headgear etc  stuff. The first thing they told me was to visit the restroom as I would not be able to do that the rest of the day. Yeah surprise No. 1. Then the ordeal began. My hair is barely shoulder length and so they started attaching really long fake hair. This was my chance to see how I would look had I been a 18th century classical dancer. I don't know much about classical dance, and if you could tell that, it was no genius. They drilled a whole packet of hair pins & more, used thread to tie things together and pulled things left right & center to make sure things didn't fall off. A Maang Tika was also clamped on to me. The fake hair was probably as heavy as me, and I found it difficult to move my head up. It reached below my bottom, they plaited it and tied it with a parinda making the whole thing even longer. They then attached strings of fresh flowers to my hair to add to the weight and size of things. And thus I grew heavier. Oh and the chunni had to cover a part of my head , so they clipped that to my crown. And so the whole long hair thing was covered behind the chunni. Was there a point then, I thought. Then the whole series of ghagra, jewellery, bindis, safety pins etc followed one after the other and sometimes in parallel. A pull there and a push somewhere continued while I was hoping that I would emerge out of it all as a brave bride. I also had to wear a nose ring hoop with a little chain that was pinned to the side of my hair. The hair-do sort of took care of restricting the up movement, the nose ring would help in restraining the left right movement. That is a shy bride in the making. I had never worn a nose ring before, so it was awkward feeling some kind of metal inside my nostrils. I even wondered for a moment what would happen if I sneezed. Then the "being a brave bride" drive hit me and I was distracted by the photographer.

So, I looked down as I walked down the aisle balancing the weight on my head wondering why women had to work so hard on their wedding day when I lifted my head up to see the groom on stage wearing a turban and a feather standing up, a heavy sherwani, a shawl, a sword and the joothiya (uncomfortable shoes). Oh I forgot to mention it was hot on stage with the fire on and fans turned away. I walked up smiling.

"This is going to be so much fun" were my thoughts as I plunged into the whole marriage experience.

It is the first time I guess I am living in a real downtown. Seattle downtown looks pale in comparison to Vancouver downtown. I am loving being here. The best part is that as soon as I step out of my apartment, there are tons of small & big cafes, resaurants, bars, clubs, shops etc. Loads of stuff happening, people walking all the time, and high levels of energy around. I have stopped driving when in downtown as finding a parking spot is painful and pricey. Instead I have started walking to most places. The weather is great, we have long sunny bright days so I have no complaints about walking. There are several activities/events happening all the time in the area which keeps life interesting even for a newbie. Ofcourse all this comes at a price, a pretty high one when you want to live in downtown. As a temporary setup I am fine with this, but I think I would need more breathing space and more room to live in especially if I have visitors & guests.

I work in Richmond which takes me roughly about 45 min by car. I am trying to get myself to take the office shuttle. The drive is annoying with a lot of construction going on and several detours and the traffic in the area. Apparently the city is getting ready for the olympics in 2010. Already? That is what I thought too.

I landed in Vancouver, Canada yesterday and have started work at Microsoft, Canada from today. I hope to be back to Redmond in the beginning of October. Haven't seen much of the city yet so not much to say there.

After a series of events celebrating a certain wedding in India, I am back from the so called *vacation*. Ofcourse the bride never has a real vacation, as I have come to experience. In all fairness, I did have a great time. Its just that so much happened in such a short time, I am still recovering. The only annoyance that kept growing on me was the photographers interfering and asking us to repeat actions so they could capture it. Oh and the fact that I had to smile through all of it. For a few hours I thought I would not smile for a whole year after that.

Nothing much changes in life as Rosh and I continue to live in different cities/states ... for that matter even different countries now. The only change I see is that we now cannot ignore the spouse section in the visa, insurance, bank etc application forms. And a ring on my finger. And people saying "your husband" :-)

I also visited Agatti island in Lakshadweep in India last week. The blue-green sea is beautiful. I would love to go back there, next time hopefully in a non-monsoon period.

My flight from US to India was pleasant & timely. Phew, finally a change :-)

I am loving these few days here, I cannot fathom how I will go back to the old life. Its the food that makes all the difference. This is how life is to be lived. Sleep & food, lots of it :-)

I am flying to India next week and am having to do a million things before the trip. Since I will fly to Canada from India I need to pack carefully. Things to take to India and then to Canada and everything else to be packed up and left somewhere. I am having to vacate my apartment which is the biggest pain of all things. I will worry about finding a place to stay when I come back to US in Oct.

For now, the one thing that keeps me excited is the thought of getting good food. I miss home food and Kerala food. Yummm.

Just 1 week :-)

I just learnt about the concept of a wedding registry. I had heard about wish lists and seen lists of gifts that kids wanted for Christmas etc in US. Recently, I heard about a wedding registry where the couple to be married put up a list of presents they want (usually pointing to the model/color/size of products in specific stores). People pick a gift from the list and cross off that item.

Sounds terribly non-Indian, doesn’t it. That is what I thought. Ofcourse from a practical point of view, it is nice that you don’t end up getting 4 copies of Star Trek!

One of those cultural things... First you shake your head then you move along :-)

I may be working in Richmond, Canada for a few months because of some visa issues. While normally I would have been very excited about working for a short while in a new country, right now I am not too happy about it. Bad timing.

From what I hear there are good Indian food choices. We shall find out in a few months and see how true that is.

Looking at the Indian restaurants in the area, I have a half baked idea about a new business idea. (I have a few of those). Of course this is for when I hit the jackpot and am like 50 years old and ready to move away from computers. Not very soon :-)

So the new business idea is to start a Kerala food restaurant. The closest I know of, is a few thousand miles away. The restaurant will be started as a social service and not as a *business*, as in making profits will not be a concern. As long as no losses are incurred, I would think of this as a successful venture. Of course I have worked out some aspects in detail in my head and not thought about several other details.

Going back to moving to Canada, I am thinking how different things are going to be from the US. I have only been to Vancouver & Whistler in winter for snowboarding and had seen a lot of international crowd and heard a lot of British English. I doubt that is typical though.

I am also toying with the idea of staying some place where I can bike to work everyday. After all its going to be summer. Its funny how summer sounds so appealing to me in US & around. Making a trip to India in summer has the opposite effect. I will be making a trip to Kerala in June, in the thick of the monsoon. May be then I'll stop complaining about Seattle showers? Nah!