In the morning I got an uber to the Malang’s home for breakfast where her son, an expert cook, had made lemon pancakes. This, along with bakarkhanis from the inner city made for an excellent breakfast, and I also had the chance to borrow her sister’s shalwar, thus ensuring that I wouldn’t attend the nikah wearing only a kameez. Entertaining though it would be.
From there I went to the graveyard where my siblings joined me. We’d decided to pop by for the morning of the nikah so that no undue sadness would marr the nikah itself, and it turned out to be a good decision. Then it was a matter of running around and making preparations; an aunt was assigned to decorating the trays of garlands, another to overseeing seating, etc, and then it was time to dress. Meanwhile it started raining, a constant drippy winter rain, and the black tent in the garden began sagging with collecting water, but thank heavens for this year’s fashion, it was velvet and only in a few places did an occasional drop fall. It was certainly very cold but again the velvet kept us warm. Nevertheless, the nikah went through in a bit of a hurry, dodging droplets. It was conducted by a friend, who was very nervous but managed to stammer through, and the novelty was enough that it was forgivable. None of us thought to tell the caterers to be quiet during the nikah, so their conversations also enlivened the ceremony, but there was no way to hush them. It certainly prevented excesses of emotion.