Exhibit A: my cousin Ernesto, blushing groom to the beautiful Charmaine (not shown) as of this past Saturday. I had a blast all weekend, since preparing for a Hindu wedding is almost as fun as the wedding itself. (To clarify: not fun for the participants… just spectators.)
Nesto had to be rubbed seven times with a turmeric-based dye, which took most of Friday, and he had to spend Friday night sleeping on a sheet in the corner. The dyeing is performed by five unmarried girls, four of whom dropped out by the fourth dyeing… so Nesto and I just gave up and finished on our own, which is against protocol but everybody admitted that it was either that or put off the wedding.
The exact religious significance of the dyeing process has been lost in the mists of time (translation: we didn’t look it up), but the cultural significance is to make the bride and groom look sort of glowy and golden, since a fair-skinned spouse is far more desirable than a dark-skinned one. In practice, since you end up scrubbing off six layers of skin to get the stuff off, you do end up looking slightly fairer. My silver-painted nails ended up a tacky shade of brass and I had to hide my hand behind my back for all the photos.
That said, it was a gorgeous ceremony, and a marvellously huge reception to follow, and everybody bawled, and I went home with a new sense of pride in my culture, my family, and my past. (I also resolved to never get married. That was the main thing.)

Every once in a while, surfing the web in a fog of despair, I come across a reason to keep living.