Monday, 18 February, 2019
We were invited to a wedding. It was out of the blue almost. But it happened.
Krish has a friend he met online, Avi. He lives in Leicester, he’s visited us once, and he makes long phone calls to one or the other of us pretty regularly. He’s a great guy, a real pleasure to know and chat to. Genuine, polite and curious. Avi says things that surprise you – that’s because he is so honest about how he feels. This happily includes good things about you – he speaks openly about his feelings around you and what you have to say. It’s quite refreshing.
Avi looked after his mum, who had Alzheimers, for years. His dad also had health issues. Avi’s life was completely tied up with that and he couldn’t ever do much outside the house. Then his mum died. His dad decided to take Avi on a trip of a lifetime to his own birthplace in India. Avi would call us to say how much he wanted to leave, how bad things were in India. Then when it was almost time for him to come back to the UK, his dad became ill and was put into hospital. Avi’s return was postponed while his dad went from serious to recovering, back to serious. The government stepped in and told Avi he’d overstayed his visa and sent him back to the UK to reapply. As soon as his new application was granted, back he went. While on his stopover on the way back to India, he got word his dad had just died. It broke my heart that had he been granted passage one day earlier, he would have been there.
His parents had wanted him to marry but every woman he met didn’t make the grade. With both parents now gone, Avi became more determined. Not too many months later, he called to say ‘I’m getting married.’ That’s a weird feeling. I knew our friendship would change, I knew his life would change, I wondered how it would be since it was an arranged marriage and he barely knew his fiancee.
A few months went by and I didn’t expect to be invited to the wedding but one day he called us to ask if we would be there. It felt like a great honour. Of course the day came – we had booked a hotel to take in the two days of celebration that we were invited to. The photos will tell the story!
Some narrative. I’ve never been to a Muslim wedding. There were hundreds of people. The women and children were dressed up very elaborately. Very often families dressed alike – the women in identical dresses and the men in matching colours – sometimes just a tie that matched the women’s dresses. There was heavy make up and jewellery. There was a lot of hugging.
The stage was arranged with thrones, and a sofa – white satin and gold. When the Nikah happened (the religious ceremony) the bride went up to a balcony at the far end of the hall and sat there with an attendant. The imam and Avi and close family members formed a circle of chairs down on the hall floor around them, but only the men. Chanting – not sounding too far from Hebrew – began, followed by a sermon or teaching of sorts, about marriage. When the bride came back, Avi and Farrah sat together on the stage and people came up to visit, take photos, and deliver gifts. This was often boxes filled with clothing, shoes, jewellery… it was very showy. The whole thing was fascinating and once again I felt privileged to be there.
And of course there was food.
Back at the hotel we had a good nap. We’d thought we might go for dinner – Krish had been talking about a buffet that he’d gone to with Avi when they met for the first time. But, predictably, we were full and after the nap we considered what we could eat and decided to have pho. Also predictably I couldn’t read the map so we wandered around in Leicester looking at the old town.
We found the pho place quite by accident. It was the perfect choice. We walked home the slow way and had a great night’s sleep. The next morning Krish went to buy us each a sandwich for breakfast.
We checked out and went to the Groom’s event near Avi’s home. It was in a smaller hall, with two rows of tables set up for food. Everyone was eagerly waiting for Avi and Farrah to arrive. And we waited. After a little while a bunch of men went to sit at some of the places at one table. We waited. At some point suddenly a large group of people raced over to the tables and quickly filled every spot. As I suspected the men sat separately from the women. We wondered how they would feed the rest of us and I speculated that the seating area might be converted but instead when the tables cleared, there was another stampede and the two tables filled again.
We knew farrah and Avi might be on their way when a dedicated group began filling the aisle with rose petals, standing by with confetti bombs. Farrah was wearing an astounding dress, the bodice and skirt covered with silver gems, her head covered with a light turquoise covering. Avi had a silver grey suit, and a tie in the same turquoise. They sat on the stage and began greeting people who filed by them with more gifts, taking more photos.
I’d met a woman the day before and asked her how I could get one of the pretty wedding favours they were passing out and she said I would get it at the table when I ate. Yes, there would be a third sitting.
We did wait, we were patient but at 2:45 we decided to leave and have a late lunch in a more leisurely manner. Avi had already told us that they would be leaving at 3pm to go to London and on to their honeymoon in the Maldives.
The cab took us to the buffet place Krish had liked so much. We had a very good meal of mostly Indian food, and left to pick up our case around 4pm.
The adventure wasn’t quite over. We arrived to get our train at the platform, just in time to hear that we needed to change to another platform and then waited with a full train of people in our carriage for more than thirty minutes while they tried to fix ‘the power engine.’ No luck! So back on the original platform, we didn’t even try to get onto the first train. We arrived back in London some time around 9pm and on to Hackney.
I’m going to miss Avi.