Our Hindu wedding anniversary

Today, 28 december, was our 10th wedding anniversary. We got married the Hindu way, something we didn't do ten years ago as someone close to A. and essential to the ritual wouldn't attend. She wouldn't attend this time either, but we now decided to go ahead with it anyway, albeit with some sadness. For A. this ritual had been a missing part of our marriage, whereas we both liked the idea of renewing our marital vows.

The complex Hindu wedding ritual, performed by a pandit who has known us for years (in fact he was A.'s family priest and he attended our civil marriage ten years ago), lasted about 3 hours and took some 5 hours of preparations (cleaning and cooking) and an afternoon of shopping. We did it completely in private. Apart from ourselves and the priest there were A.'s brother and his wife, plus the children.

The first part was a cleansing ritual to wash away the 'sin' of having lived together and having children without being 'properly' married. This sounds more severe than what it felt like. These ancient rituals (going back more than 2500 years!) have a strict logic of their own, and if you do them, you better do them properly. It was done in a serious but pleasant way.

The second part was the wedding ceremony proper. As I said, the ritual is complex, and I am not sure I grasped the full meaning of each and every aspect of it.(*) The main elements consisted of asking the blessing of the gods, in particular Ganesha and Lakshmi mata, and sacrifices of food, flowers, and money. The Hindu faith does not beat about the bush as regards the importance they attach to material wealth, I have noticed on several occasions. Western traditions are more squeamish, or at any rate less explicit about it.

A real fire, representing everlasting fire as against our passing existence, 'bore witness' to the ritual. It caused a lot of smoke in the apartment of my brother in law and his wife. As it has a state of the art fire alarm which could cause the whole apartment block to be evacuated if set off, we anxiously tried to keep the door to the central hall, where the sensor is, tightly closed...

The children behaved OK, in spite of the length of the ritual. M. was fascinated, whereas T. and R. seemed mildly bored, as you can see in the pictures.

Yesterday we had gone to the notary to sign our wills. Preparing one's will seems such a gloomy thing, but I actually found it relieving. We're all set and ready for the rest of our lives now.

(*) This seems to be a characteristic of many Hindu rituals, and I am sure of rituals in many other traditions as well. I remember that Frits Staal spent 10 years analysing the Brahmin fire (Agni) ritual, which is still performed in India but understood by few. I discovered there's a whole academic discipline devoted to the study of ritual. Staal even thinks that ritual is at the origin of language itself.