Wednesday, January 17, 2007

India Day 20 – Rave steals the Jaan’s (Groom’s) Shoes

The following story may take a while, but it is REALLY FUNNY!

A really quick history about Indian wedding’s. Every wedding comes with a lot tradition. For example, the bride’s side usually pays for the wedding, along with paying for the wedding, they are asked to provide the groom’s side with any facilities that they need. May it be food, drinks, chairs, napkins, basically while the wedding is going on, the brides side is suppose to make sure that the groom’s family members are all well taken care of. Well one of the fun games of an Indian wedding is where the brides family members are suppose to steal the groom’s shoes. Yes you heard me right, STEAL HIS SHOES!! This tradition takes place when the groom is supposed to take off his shoes when he enters the altar, and stays barefoot for about 3-4 hours. Typically the shoes are given to the groom’s best man, and his other best friends for safe keeping. All the while, the brides side is suppose to find the shoes, and steal them.

Now the story takes place during Janku’s wedding. It was about 6:00 p.m., when the wedding started, and the Jaan (Groom) took off his shoes, everyone’s eyes were on that prize. Typically the person who recovers the shoes hold them for ransoms for a certain amount of money, not for a lot of money, it’s more for the fun of the chase. As the shoes were removed they were placed in a white bag, and given to the Jaan’s brother. After a few minutes the bag was given to the groom’s grandmother in the first row. Typically, this is not common; usually the shoes stay with one person the whole wedding. And if they are given to someone else, it is someone of younger, healthier stature. When the bag was given to the grandmother, I guess they were thinking, “Who would steal it from our sweet grandmother?” I guess they thought wrong, because all of us were conniving ways to steal the bag from the grandmother.

Around 8:00 p.m., we decided to send our troops in to help do our dirty work for us. Our two agent’s names were Aneri & Sejel Patel. Both of my cousins walked past the bag around 8-9 times, always hesitating to snatch the bag, because they didn’t want to be caught with nothing in the bag. After some encouragement from some other people, Sejel went to the grandmother and leaped for the bag. As she grabbed the box from in inside the bag, 3 adults, including the Jaan’s mother started attacking Sejel with tickles and pinches. When Aneri saw that, she jumped into pile to try to help her cousin. As we all stared on in amazement, Sejel’s older brother Hiren saw the commotion, and went into the dog pile to help steal the shoes. After 30 seconds of tugging back and forth, the Jaan’s brother asked us to stop the fighting, and then told Hiren to open the box, if the shoes were in there, he was welcome to take them. As Hiren opened the empty box, my brother Rave was watching in disappointment from one row back, behind the grandmother.

As Rave watched all the chaos in front of him, he noticed that the people sitting next to the grandmother were moving the shoes. They had separated the shoes from the box, and they were shifting them from one person’s back to another person’s back. After moving the shoes to an elder gentleman, at the end of the bench’s, Rave stood there pointing at the man from behind his back. Now, no one had noticed this, everyone’s eyes were still in the large dog pile. As I turned my head from the dog pile to Rave, I saw him leaping into the elder man’s seat. I didn’t know what was going on, but 5 second’s later, my cousin’s Jigu & Tejel, were in the same fight, even though no shoe was yet to be seen. About another 10 seconds later, my cousin Hiren jumped into the new fight. A few second’s later I saw Jigu come out with one of the two shoes, as he clutched the shoe he started running the opposite direction of the tugging match. About another second later Rave had recovered the other shoe, and he was also running the opposite direction of the fight with the shoe as if his life depended on it.

As we all laughed and cheered in enjoyment, I knew this had to a great story for my BLOG!! Check out these pictures… LOL

What did you think? I hope it made sense.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I remember the pictures when you showed me, but until I read the full story, it made me laugh.. I can actually picture Rave running for his life.. LOL