A wet wedding

Had been to Chennai for a couple of days to attend a wedding. One of Priya's cousins was getting married and we thought that it was the perfect oppurtunity to meet up. The wedding was a grand affair with the usual hustle and bustle that is routine down south. The girl was a Tam Brahm and the groom was a Keralite. We reached the venue on time to find that everyone except the bride and the groom was present. Apparently, the grroms family had decided to hijack the wedding ceremony(as is common in inter-cultural matches) and get the couple married Kerala ishtyle, much to the consternation of the bride's side. After hours of waiting, the couple and their immediate families turned up fully married, much to the bewilderment of the assembled guests. The guests tired of waiting in the stifling heat, decided that the best bet now would be to greet the couple and push off to the lunching area.
I and Priya greeted the newly wed couple and without much ado hurried to the lunching area. The lunch was undoubtedly the best part of the entire wedding. People were seated on benches facing long tables laid with banana leaves for plates. There was an assortment of items, the number of which escapes my little mind. I dived into the food and savored the mild vegetarian delicacies with zest. Half an hour and a full stomach later we bid our goodbyes and beat the hell out of there.
Evening again saw us assembled at the same venue for the reception. Accompanying us were most of the people who were present for the morning ceremony. As with the morning ceremony, the food was again a saving grace.
One thing I noticed about Chennai natives is their ability to tolerate heat and the discomfit caused by perennial sweating. Each one of them carries a large handkerchief which if wringled could solve the world's water problems with finality. Also people use a lot of talcum powder on their faces. A Chennaiite at night is an eerie spectacle with with a white face set on a dark body. Before long it was time to head back to Bangalore. It surely was a wet wedding.