Pictures from Some Days after the Wedding

During the days since Claire and Sajal’s wedding we have been unwinding, and day after day a few more guests have gone home from both sides of the family. Deval, Laura, and her parents left, then Don, Ian, and Leyla, then Antonio and the Lloyds, and now only Nicole, some of Sajal’s family members, and I are left here. Nicole had planned to go yesterday, but because of the weather no planes left Pokhara. Today she and Bhuwon hope to fly out, and tomorrow the rest of us will go home. We all spent the night at Claire’s new home with Sajal, Bhuwon, Rajya, Swopnil, and Sworupa last night. The monsoon that held off throughout the wedding has finally settled in, and it rained all night.

On Monday we visited a Buddhist gumba, or school, and after that the Ghorka Museum celebrating the military fighters who serve in the British army, and a cave. After that Claire and I came over to the house to begin getting her moved in and to help make and eat momos.
On Tuesday several of us rented bikes and rode around town. Claire and Sajal had to leave us mid-morning, and the rest of us split up, and Teri and I ended up visiting the Mountain Museum, where we had lunch in a wonderful little restaurant, but only after I got hit by a microbus that turned without looking (only bruises, nothing bad except that my outrage scared the driver).

On Wednesday we all, along with Sajal’s family, drove up the mountains to Lumle, a little village at a much cooler altitude, where we walked through a traditional village that had once been a trekker’s stopover, before the road to it was built, and where Bhuwon directed a regional agricultural station for 19 years, and where Sajal spent much of his early life. We saw the house where he grew up. It was a beautiful, refreshing outing far from the heat of the valley.

The past couple of days we have not done much but take walks, shop a little, cook, play cards, and relax. I’ve toured the gardens around the house, where so many fruit trees grow: Asian pears, bananas, mangoes, papayas, mandarin oranges, limes, and several fruits I don’t know, as well as corn, coffee, beans, squash, greens, tomatoes, mint, and various flowers, including 21 varieties of orchids.

Yesterday we had lunch with Surmila Auntie, who lives nearby and who hosted Claire this spring when she visited Pokhara, and Claire and I took a walk to see the Seti River Gorge nearby here. Last night when the eleven of us in the house were finding places to sleep I chose the balcony where the windows are open on three sides and I could hear the rain falling all night and feel its cooling mist. It is early morning now, still raining, and occasionally people are walking by under their umbrellas. Four roads crisscross in a flattened x shape in front of the house, and directly across the street is the Buddhist Bihar that Sajal’s great aunt founded, where one of his older relatives lives as a monk. It is already lighted, but it is the only lighted place in sight. A rooster crows occasionally.

Claire will go to Kathmandu this week to finish up her work there, and after that she will begin to figure out what she will do here in Pokhara. Her work at TPO Nepal in Kathmandu has given her a sense of what the mental health and social work needs are here in Nepal, and how she can use her skills and education especially in Pokhara where there are so few services available. But since TPO Nepal decided not to open an office here, she will have to be creative and entrepreneurial in figuring it out. She is in the best of settings for this, since Bhuwon has experience in starting up agencies in his own field of conservation biology and will help her think it through. But before she settles in too much she will be traveling to the U.S. next month for Ian’s wedding.

The Next Day

The day after the wedding Claire and Sajal and his parents went to a temple to have their marriage blessed. According to Claire, however, the priest misunderstood and married them once again (quickly this time), so they have now been married four times. Unfortunately, it all happened before we were able to arrive, but we did get some pictures at the temple.

After this we went back to their home where many of Sajal’s family members were bringing gifts, mostly saris and shirts. When this was over the four parents were seated across from each other to bless and give gifts to one another.

Later in the day everyone went to the Pokhara Grande Hotel for the wedding bhoj, or reception. It was a lot of fun—lots of people, lots of dancing, and even some jumping in the pool.

Claire and Sajal's Wedding

The night before the wedding actually took place, Claire and Don and I were invited to attend a meeting at the home of neighbors of the Sthapits’. This was a conference with several of the eldest generation to decide what rituals would be done in the wedding, how, when, and by whom. Nine people sat in a circle on the floor and debated, coming to consensus on each point. Sajal asked questions about the meaning of some of the rituals. We didn’t understand anything unless it was interpreted, since it was all in Nepali and Newari languages. Everyone seemed satisfied and was standing to leave when evidently Sajal’s grandmother suggested that Don and I be invited to the part of the ceremony that takes place at the groom’s family’s home, not a part we would customarily be able to attend. There was a little debate but, we were told, she said “rules are made to be broken” and she prevailed. She is 75, Sajal’s mother’s mother, and probably the eldest person there.

On the wedding afternoon, Claire was elaborately made up by several friends working consecutively. Several people left for Sajal’s house to join the procession that would arrive later at the hotel, which was proxy for the bridal home where the first part of the ceremony would normally have taken place. Bhuwon and Rajya had arranged for the hotel to take care of all the preparations that we would have done, just as we took care of the responsibilities of the groom’s family last December. The processors walked, then rode most of the way, then walked again, with a band preceding them, headed by Sajal’s sister Swopnil, and carrying gifts of foods, sweets, clothing, jewelry, and symbolic objects. Sajal was not among them. This was his family coming to ask for Claire’s hand, a ritual that would normally have taken place days or weeks before. They laid the gifts before her and Sajal’s father Bhuwon formally asked Ian and me, and we agreed.

Only then did Sajal arrive in a car decorated with flowers, preceded once again by the band. Don and Ian and I circled the car three times tossing rice, the Ian brought Sajal out of the car. At this point the contest was on for Sajal’s shoes: the bride’s family trying to steal them (to sell them back later in an elaborate bartering process) and the groom’s family trying to protect them.

Sajal stood on a platform and I circled him three times pouring water from a silver pitcher, then welcomed him with a tikka on the forehead (the rice mixture is red and gooey; several people had let me practice on them). Then we led Sajal into the courtyard of the hotel where Claire was waiting. I was brought around to all his women and children family members to welcome them with a tikka and hand them an envelope of money.

Then the ceremony began, with the Buddhist priest (who is not a fulltime priest but does weddings and funerals) sitting to the side of the couple. There was a series of rituals involving oil lamps, incense, flowers, leaves, powders, water, foods such as apples, and the priest’s prayer book. Lots of motions, with the priest and everyone else telling the couple what to do all along the way, and sometimes pausing for a debate. They stood up after awhile and Claire walked around Sajal three times pouring water as I had, they exchanged garlands and jewelry, and Claire quickly reached down to kiss his feet while he protested. At a certain point when we had one of Claire’s hands and Sajal had the other, they were married. Or rather, they would have been married if they hadn’t already been. Everyone there knew that this was their third wedding—once in civil court in Washington D.C., once in Louisville, with the marriage license already confirmed in Nepal, and once again in Pokhara. (The next day they accidentally had a fourth wedding when they went to a temple for a blessing and the priest misunderstood and married them again.)

The band played and the dancing went on, Bhuwon dancing first, then various members of the family in various configurations as the singer called them out. Dinner was served. Then Sajal and Claire were led to the car to go to Sajal’s parents’ home, and we followed in various cars and vans.

Sajal’s home was strung all over with lights. The procession appeared again, with the band, with Ian and a lot of excited children in the lead. Claire and Sajal both stood on wooden platforms this time, and Sajal’s mother Rajyashree performed various rituals with them and then welcomed Claire into their house by giving her the other end of a key and pulling her inside. At the doorway Sajal’s sisters extorted money from him in a debate that was almost as elaborate as the shoe debate had been, and finally a satisfying price was reached and he was allowed inside.

The rest took place under a tent in the driveway. Claire and Sajal and the priest performed various rituals as before. Then each of Sajal’s family members were introduced to her, each receiving a handful of nuts or a bag of nuts, and giving her a small bit of cash. The rest of us watched. That was the conclusion of the wedding. The crowds had thinned considerably by then, and we said goodbye to Sajal and Claire and his parents and grandmother and rode back to the hotel.

The wedding was beautiful and elegantly done. Sajal’s family worked hard to blend cultures and adapt rituals, and to do the parts of both families, and to do it with great style, class, dignity, and fun.

A Few Signs

Some of us are twisting our tiny bits of Nepali language skill ("a little bit" is "ali ali," and my Nepali is "ali alI ALI!!!") every day, but that doesn't prevent delight with some of the English signs we see along the way...

The World Peace Pagoda and the Beauty Saloon

Across the lake from our hotel, on the top of a tall hill, is the world peace pagoda, a Buddhist shrine. On our first day in Pokhara nine of us set out walking to go to it. We first rode in boats across the lake, stopping at a temple on an island in the lake, then landing on the other side. The steps up were uneven and steep and the climb took over an hour in the heat. But it was peaceful there. We sat in the shade of the monument, soaking up the coolness of the stone floor, for a good long time before we climbed back down on the other side, finding lunch along the way and stopping at the bottom at Devi’s Fall, where the river had once swept away a person named Mrs. Davis.

The next day all the guests except Claire, Don and I went to Sajal’s home, where the women had their feet pedicured and painted red and the men had shaves and haircuts. Claire and I spent the day in the “Spa and Beauty Saloon” getting our nails done and having massages and facials. We were in the midst of this when family members showed up with the foot painting lady to paint our feet even as we rested under sheets.

Traveling to Pokhara

Wednesday we set out in a 16 passenger van with all our belongings and many of Claire’s, to travel to Pokhara. It is only 200 km. distant, but the road is winding, congested, and often blocked, so on a good day it takes 4-5 hours and can be much more. After we got through the 5-vehicle wreck that looked pretty bad, we encountered another traffic snarl, with stopped buses. Our driver began to squeeze past on the right, then backed quickly out when he saw fists flying—men were reaching into the bus to pummel the driver, and others were pummeling him from the other side. Still others were gathering to try to break it up. The next thing we knew, someone else was behind the wheel and the bus was moving on. Evidently this driver had frightened people both on and off the bus and had been fired, so to speak.

All in all the drive, with a long lunch and pleasant stop, took about nine hours. The hotel in Pokhara is a new one, extremely nice, in the midst of the tourist section, next to a large lake. Sajal and his father Bhuwon met us soon after our arrival and we heard a little about plans for the wedding, part of which would take place at this hotel as a proxy for the bride’s parental home. Later in the evening we all met Sajal’s family at a relative’s restaurant for a wonderful, and overwhelming, Nepali dinner. It was lovely to be rejoined with them exactly six months to the day after Claire and Sajal’s wedding in Louisville December 30.

Arrivals and Sightseeing

Saturday evening our friends Teri and Colin Lloyd and Erin Lloyd Denny and her husband Chris arrived in Kathmandu, and Sunday morning Don, Ian, and Leyla arrived. We all checked into the Nirvana Hotel not far from Claire’s apartment. Sunday afternoon Claire took the whole group around Kathmandu, through Thamel, Assen, and Durbar Square, and through Freak Street where the hippies used to hang out. Half the group ended up shoe shopping and the other half made our way home.

Monday Claire had to work, and Teri went to work with her, but the rest of us hopped in a taxi and visited Bodhnath, a large Buddhist stupa surrounded by a Tibetan community and many monasteries. The taxis took us to what seemed like a random street corner on a random chaotic street somewhere in Kathmandu. We asked them where Bodhnath was, they pointed, and suddenly we saw an arch, and beyond the arch a stupa that looked very much like Swayambunath, only much bigger, a world apart from the frantic street. We walked, or strolled, clockwise around the stupa, found a door and steps to walk up on it, and made the circuit several times. In addition to the regular prayer wheels, there were enormous ones housed in monasteries, larger than people. You walk around these prayer wheels and sometimes double prayer wheels, turning them as you walk. Even though there was plenty of shopping available there, the sellers weren’t pushy and the atmosphere remained peaceful.

Watching the prayerful movements of the worshippers there was fascinating and instructive. Not only was there bowing in various places and meditative walking. At one place someone had stacked about 20 bowls of corn and other pigeon delights, and worshippers would come and take a bowl, say a prayer, and scatter it to the waiting birds. We ate lunch on a rooftop looking out over the stupa, climbing a stairway that was more of a ladder to get there. How the waiters brought full trays of food up those stairs was a mystery.

From there we went to Pashupatinath, the largest Hindu temple in Kathmandu and the cremation ground. It was an area many times larger than Bodhnath and not as peaceful, much more coming and going. A young man approached us and started telling us about it, then asked if we needed a guide. At first we said no, but as he talked, and then showed his “student tourguide” card, we saw he was not only legitimate but quite knowledgeable, and he turned out to be a delightful companion. He took us all around, showing us the temple itself, which only Hindus could enter. It had a large golden bull in front of the entrance, turned to look inside and thus displaying to us its substantial hindparts. In fact, the whole place was filled with phallic and fertility symbols of various kinds.

We went inside a government-run old folks home on the grounds, which looked quite uncomfortable. Interestingly, though, when we entered the courtyard, they were doing what old folks in American nursing homes do—clapping their hands to religious musicians that had come to perform for them.

By the river we saw the pyres where bodies are cremated. We saw one that was finished, its ashes being swept into the river. A second that was nearly burned but still recognizable as a human form, its smoke rising up into our eyes and its ashes into our hair. It was striking to witness a stranger’s earthly existence ending in this way. Holy, I think. Later we saw another body shrouded in yellow and red being prepared for cremation, the family gathered around holding marigold garlands in their hands, several women weeping and one woman in particular the center of consolation. The body was put on a slanted slab close to the water and washed with the water. It was then covered with flower petals and powders, then moved to a level place. In the meantime another body was carried and and preparations begun for it.

At the same time as these, across the river a festival was being prepared. Musicians began to play, and a very happy holy man, who looked like he should have been on a 60s flower power record album cover, and could well have been smoking the substances that are legal for holy men but illegal (except one day a year) for everyone else, danced in bliss. We stayed awhile, watching the juxtaposition of life and death all happening at once in that place before we made our way home.

The next day, Tuesday, we traveled to Bhaktapur, a medieval city outside of Kathmandu. It too had a Durbar Square in front of a royal palace, filled with temples and monuments, and surrounded by souvenir shops.