Ronnie and Dola, The Wedding

Photographs Sukruti Anah Staneley/Studio Unpose Family Archives of The Lahiris and The Boses Text Sukrita Lahiri Design and Layout Sukruti Anah Staneley/Studio Unpose Illustration (Wedding Invitation) Rohan Chakravarthy Printing Naveen Printers, New Delhi First Edition 2017, New Delhi ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION. ALL CHEESE MUST BE CONSUMED. STUDIO UNPOSE studiounpose@gmail.com www.sukrutianahstaneley.com

PRODUCED BY

BROUGHT TOGETHER BY

JNU greens. Dola was in Delhi for a few days and we decided to make the most of it, kicked off the wedding feel by getting some fun pictures of Dola and Ronnie. While Ronnie was awkward in front of the camera at first, Dola was all too comfortable. The mushy love reflecting through the pictures does justice to the fun photo shoot day, that ended with fish fingers and Bengali-style mutton biryani at Ronnie’s C-pad in Saket.

Food is the most important part of a Bengali wedding, and so it is incorporated into the wedding functions in a manner that some of the functions are dedicated entirely to it. Aai Budo Bhaat is one such function and one of the favorites of most of us. It signifies the last meal the groom has in his house as a bachelor and the groom’s favorites are a must in the menu for this day.

A two-day journey from central India to the far eastern part of the country began with an entertaining train ride from Nagpur to Kolkata. In the baraatis were childhood and family friends, among relatives and cousins who kept the entire bogie of the train brimming with excitement from fun games (serious enough to be recorded on a score card), chakli-chiwda-neemki for snacks, kheema paratha for dinner (an essential for train meals). And of course, referring to mumma’s ‘wedding notes diary’ for going over the final preparations. We reached Kolkata early on the morning of 17th and flew to Dibrugarh that same afternoon.

Bor Jaatris’ (groom’s side of the family and friends) welcome was something special. We were welcomed to Duliajan in the most warm and traditional manner by Dola’s family and close friends. The gamusas (small piece of cloth symbolic of Assamese identity) that we got as part of our welcome are to be treasured for a long time.

Because of the time constraints and the long line up of events to be covered in this elaborate Bengali wedding, we had to get the marriage registration done within a few hours of reaching Duliajan. Ronnie was the first to get dressed so he could get a quick catching-up session with Dola before the festivities began – and this was also meant for him to learn and practice in about 30 minutes their would-be first dance on Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud. Predictably, there was hardly any practice as they could not stop giggling and flirting, while Daibee tried hard to act as the strict and no nonsense dance instructor.

The marriage registration was accompanied by extremely heartfelt messages from both sets of parents and with this, it felt for a brief moment that it’s done, they’re married! In a reverse, this was followed by them exchanging rings while the guests enjoyed the cocktails and hummed to the Bangla and Assamese songs being played by the band.

Dola and her girl gang put up an awesome dance performance, while Honey bhai was our impromptu star performer – and versatile at that, switching effortlessly between Bihu, Bhangra and Lavani.

Nandi Mukh is a ritual of paying tribute and worshipping the ancestors by the groom and his father before the wedding. It is considered auspicious to remember the ancestors before starting a new chapter in one’s life.

Ronnie’s Ashirwad brought in the family and friends of the bride to bless the groom. Dola’s close family came with dhol and baajna, dancing their way into our guest house. The gifts and sweets brought by them were delicately packed and this ceremony was all the more special for Ronnie as he was showered with gifts.

For Dola’s Ashirwad, Ronnie’s family and friends went to Dola’s place to bless her. It was now Dola’s turn to be showered with gifts, amidst loads of mishti feeding and shonkho playing in the background.

Later, the Sangeet and Mehendi saw a soft competition between the bor-jaatris (groom’s side) and the konna-jaatris (bride’s side) as the line-up of performances from both sides were neck to neck.

Dola’s aunt, Maamon, did the tough work of hosting the event and did a fine job of being fair to both the sides. The diverse range of music and dances covered many parts of India - Punjabi songs were sung, Bihu was danced, classic Bangla hits played and a ghaati Marathi dance also erupted. At one point, the youngest to the oldest were all on the elevated platform dancing together. Dola’s father and Bobde uncle ended up singing a duet, Bonny bhai put up all his classics brilliantly, Sukruti surprised everyone by keeping the camera away for a bit and picking up the guitar - and did a quick beautiful song performance, Ronnie’s friend Sabiha sang Punjabi songs like a boss. It was heartening to see Piklu kaka dancing at Ronnie baba’s wedding. Dola in the meanwhile took quick trips indoors to get her mehendi done while trying not to miss the action on stage.

The after party at our guesthouse was as much fun, with some super in-house performances by Raghav, Pranab and Tobby.

Gaaye Holud is a ceremony that takes place in most Hindu weddings, but the idea behind this in a Bengali wedding is slightly different.

The process is that the holud (haldi) first takes place at groom’s place. A bit of the holud is scraped off his body and mixed with more holud and shorshe tel (mustard oil). This, along with gaaye holud’er totto (gifts for the bride and her extended family) is then taken by the groom’s friends and cousins to the bride’s place. The holud then takes place at her place. In the totto one thing that stands out and often attracts curiosity is a whole fish on a tray dressed as a bride - with nose ring, bindi, dupatta, pan leaf stuffed in the mouth. Traditionally, this fish is had by the bride’s family and friends the same afternoon.

Our groom was extremely certain of not going out bare-chested for his holud and insisted on wearing and sacrificing his very dear ‘my tee’. All of us played holi with the holud.

Baraat is the procession with all the guests from the groom’s side dancing and singing their way to the bride’s home for the wedding. We reached Dola’s place covering a 10-minute drive in about an hour. A special request for what is called sandal in Maharashtra and can be understood as dhol otherwise, was made and we were thankful to have gotten the closest possible option to sandal available in Duliajan.

An open car was beautifully decorated for Ronnie to go to Dola’s place and he couldn’t keep himself from dancing away in the car and also outside of it with his all too enthusiastic baraatis. Given a chance, Ronnie’s friends and cousins could have danced for another couple of hours but they had to oblige to the elder’s asking them to hurry while the excited Raghav still faintly responding by saying “but I wanna dance!”

Bor Boron is the groom’s welcome into the bride’s home by her mother. This is preceded by a face off of sorts between the friends and cousins of the two sides. For him to enter the bride’s place to marry her, her friends and cousins ask for some monies as shagun and this is vehemently negotiated by the grooms’ friends and cousins.

The mandap (structure constructed for the marriage rituals) done up for the beeye was tastefully done - Dola herself painted the floor with traditional bengali alpona (can be understood as the bengali variant of rangoli) patterns. The bor-jaatris settled in and the beeye began while the bor’s minions kept a close watch on his shoes. In fact, this bor was competitive enough to come prepared with two pairs of identical mojris.

Our gorgeous Bengali bride was ushered in by her brothers on their shoulders as she nervously tried to balance herself up there. The pictures bear testimony to the mischievous rule breaking when Dola tries to look through her pan leaves to catch a glimpse of her bor.

The beeye continued until a little after the cold winter midnight. The menu for this night had all the traditional Bengali delicacies one can think of.

The Bidaai is probably one of the most nervously and emotionally anticipated events of a wedding and how much ever one expects to be staying calm and putting up a brave face or breaking down, what one actually goes through being a part of this ceremony can never be anticipated. Dola is the darling of Duliajan and of course, for her to leave her home and her quaint little lovely town was an overwhelming experience for everyone present at the bidaai ceremony. And now, we were off to Nagpur.

We reached home from Duliajan in the afternoon and had just a few hours to prepare for the bou-boron.

The idea is to welcome the bride home before the sun sets. Dola and Ronnie came with Deepak maama and Sadhna maami to Devika Madhur. Dola was welcomed by mumma and in true Bengali tradition, she walked into the home with a bag of live fish (considered to be auspicious and also food has to be co-opted!). Once they settled in, the ashirwad ceremony started where all the elders took turns to bless the couple.

What followed was certainly one of the most entertaining hours of the long long wedding. Customarily, a few games are played with the bride and the groom competing against each other. But here it was taken a notch higher, courtesy Mini maami, the most hilarious, embarrassing games were impromptu planned and played. One of them was the kheema samosa game where both had to together finish one tiny little samosa without breaking or dropping it. This was one game that pulled the young and old around the house to the living room where it was being played and everyone excitedly cheered on for them. Bonny bhai proudly had the record number of kheema samosas this evening.

Shortly after, Dola’s family joined us. A special mention needs to be made about the most creatively and delicately designed phul-shojja’r totto that was brought by them all the way from Duliajan. Each and every tray of gift was bursting with intricate creativity and all this was carefully done by dear maamon.

All of us cousins have always tried our best to make the ‘first-night’ post wedding a little difficult for all the cousin’s weddings until now. Difference was that this time Ronnie was on the other side of the table.

Since he was on our side until now, he ran through all our antics that we usually use for spoilers. But he still fell into the trap along with Dola. We all hid inside the washroom when they entered the room and as they used the door handle and knob to open the doors, they unpleasantly realized that their hands were full of toothpaste. The negotiations started after this, for us to leave the room and after much diplomatic deliberations all of us settled for a meal at Barbeque Nation. One of the best moments of this night was to see Rinku didi acting our age.

Bou bhaat is considered to be one of the most important ceremonies of a Bengali wedding. The idea behind this is that the notun bou (bride) cooks bhaat (rice) and along with her bor (groom), serves it to all their guests. Like was said earlier, there are entire functions dedicated to food. This took place in our very dear Bala’s Vrindavan, a lawn that has seen many family functions.

The menu for this afternoon had beguni, doi maach, maangsho, aloo posto - all things Bengali. Referring to mumma’s wedding prep notes would give us the exact details but she wouldn’t let anyone touch it.

With all the ceremonies over and only the reception to go for the following day, this evening was well spent with some continental food, drinks, bonfire and bangla songs in one of the coldest winter nights of the season. Coincidentally, there were among us, three couples who had their anniversaries on that day and so we celebrated those as well. Gaurav dada finally joined us this day onwards and staying true to his duties, he was the man behind the bar.

Coming to the final event of the long and elaborate wedding, the reception at Nagpur was fun. The caterers, Madhav Uberoi & Co. who is mumma’s favorite and an old time ally (who has also catered at Piklu kaka’s wedding) did a brilliant job of making all the guests’s tummies happy. Until today, we sometimes wish we had more of the kheema pav that night. While Dola, Ronnie, mumma and papa were the constants on the stage greeting, meeting and posing with people for the customary reception photos, Dola’s father and Bonny bhai sang beautifully with live army band for company.

To end it, we headed home and indulged in some unwrapping of gifts as Dola and Ronnie were only too excited for that and still had the energy to keep themselves going at that. Celebrations continued with the uncorking of a champagne bottle.

RONNIE TRAVES FROM BOMBAY TO DELHI, TO MEET DOLA’S FATHER FOR THE FIRST TIME. 11 JUNE 2015

RONNIE ARRIVES IN DIBRUGARH, ASSAM, FROM DELHI VIA KOLKATA, WHERE HE MEETS DOLA FOR THE FIRST TIME. 21 JUNE 2015

ON AN IMPROMPTU TRIP FROM DELHI, RONNIE LANDS IN A RAINY DIBRUGARH TO MEET DOLA, AND HAS AN ADVENTURE. 29 AUGUST 2015

HONEYMOON TICKETS TO BALI, INDONESIA 27 JANUARY 2016

It all started on the evening of 1st June 2015 with a phone call between two strangers. Seven short months later, we were getting married. We have our parents to thank for finding each other. Through the wedding prep, we had little idea of what constitutes the much paraphrased “dream wedding�; but the nine-day extravaganza with close friends and family was more than anything we had ever dreamt of. New relations were forged - friends became family and new families became friends. The fun started with the train journey from Nagpur traversing states to reach far east through the wilderness of Kaziranga to the warmth of festivities at Duliajan and then back at Nagpur. We have priceless memories of the festivities and the good times. Our sincere gratitude to the gorgeous lady behind the lens for capturing these special memories for eternity.

Ronnie and Dola