I've taken you guys behind the scenes of a Muslim wedding before.
But now it's time to take you behind the scenes of a Hindu wedding.
And this Hindu wedding is in the middle of Rajasthan in a desert village.
It's gonna be really different, really beautiful and oh my god, the food!
The wedding starts later in the afternoon
but let me take you around and show you what people are doing and how they are preparing for this wedding.
These guys are decorating the house and the house has recently been painted as well before the wedding.
Let's see what's happening down here.
So the women you can see in there, they are singing because they are happy.
A lot of singing happens in the Indian culture.
And a lot of dancing happens, especially in the villages.
And they are actually not singing in Hindi. They are singing in a dialect of Rajasthani but a dialect of Rajasthani.
So I don't know if you know what they are singing about but I'm told it's very happy and it's to celebrate the wedding that's gonna happen tonight.
This is some of the food that is gonna be cooked at this wedding.
So you've got juice, you've got carrots, you've got pineapples, you've got everything.
Capsicums, cauiflower, tomatoes, grapes...
coriander, lettuce, papaya...
Bhindi which is ladies' fingers in English..everything!
And they've already started cooking as well actually. I'll show you that right now.
So the cooking is gonna be done here.
There's usually two buffaloes here that live here but they've been moved out so that the chefs can come and do the cooking here.
Let's see what everybody is making right now.
Alright. Right now, it's just tea on the boil.
Marriages in India are complicated affairs.
They go for between 3 to 5 days usually and this one's been a 3 day wedding.
But I'm staying here for a whole week.
So the last two days, we've been doing more kind of rituals.
Today is the actual marriage day where Nisha is going to do a bunch of more rituals
we are gonna have a party and then tomorrow morning, she is going to leave with her husband for her husband's house.
A lot of rituals are going to happen at the house.
But we need to go outside the house and I'll show you the preparations that are going on
for the wedding that's gonna happen or the wedding party that's gonna happen for everybody who is invited.
And where all the food will be served as well.
And if you want to see what daily life in an Indian village is like, I've made a video on that.
I go from my life from morning to dusk here in this beautiful Rajasthani village.
This is a traditional Indian village and
they have set up the wedding celebration area in a different part of the village just down the road from Nisha's house.
And this is the entrance. You can see that they are all setting up now. .
And I think food is already being provided so..
Yes, sweets are already on offer here and everybody from the village here is invited to come and eat.
So here we have gulab jamun
This is rasgulla.
jalebi...
So here we have roti being served...
Paneer (a kind of Indian cheese made by curdling milk) curry, maybe shahi paneer
kadhi (thick chickpea flour gravy to which curd is added)
raita (indian condiment made with curd)
And then a selection of vegetables.
And so all that food you can see behind me, it's all been cooked over at Nisha's house and transported here so...
Everybody in the village can come and celebrate Nisha's wedding and enjoy food all day long
and the party will start here at night. All the rituals are gonna be done across at Nisha's house.
But we will all end up here at night eating and dancing and having fun.
Then at the back of this tent here, you have the women who are cleaning all the dishes up.
In the village here, they have separate times for the men and the women to eat.
So right now, all the women are eating and they are sitting down and they've actually sectioned off this bit behind me
so the women can sit there in peace and eat.
And I can't actually go in there and film because you know, who wants to be filmed when they are sitting on the floor and eating
Well, women don't, yeah so...
Venu, how are you?
Look at how beautifully you are dressed. These are beautiful clothes, right?
Oh, wow.
Right now behind me, one of my favorite foods in India, one of my favorite street foods in India is being made...
Pani Puri, or as you call it in Delhi, gol gappa.
And what it is.. it's a deep fried shell with a hole in the top and they fill it with potatoes, with chickpeas,
and tamarind chutney and spicy kind of green water.
I'm not exactly sure what it is but that's the pani, the water, in the puri which is that shell you put all the ingredients in
and you just stick one one in your mouth and it just kind of explodes with flavor in there.
And so here we have the tamarind chutney which is cooking.
And it's just tamarind boiled with sugar, water and a few other ingredients. Super tasty!
And then over here, these are the puri shells I was talking to you about, the deep fried shells.
And they just fry this oil here and they come out looking just like this and
you can just knock a hole in it like this and then you fill it up with all the ingredients.
Okay so this guy is gonna show us how to fry the pani puri.
So first he rolls it and then he dumps it in the frying pan.
And it's gonna come into that puri shape, that round puri shape, in a second.
There you go. There you have the nearly finished fried product right there.
Then you just take it out with this big kind of, what we call a silver spoon, and they end up in here.
Over here you have a guy who is cutting the carrots and then they are preparing it for gajar halwa (sweet made with carrots)
Karl: What is this? Cook: Tikki. Karl: Tikki? Tikki means potato tikki? Cook: Potato tikki.
Karl: Oh, for the chaat? (savory snack) Cook: Yes. Karl: Okay.
So this guy is busy mixing the aloo (potato) for the aloo tikki
and aloo tikki is a street food. It's deep fried potato, covered in yogurt and tamarind and other spices.
And this is how the aloo tikki has come out.
They are put into bowls and they'll get smashed down and cooked into aloo tikki later.
Karl: What are you preparing? Cook: Sabzi (mixed vegetables) Karl: Okay.
This guy is boiling sabzi (vegetables) and he is putting it right here
and this has got to go into a vegetable curry.
Manu: She's rich. She's a show-off. Karl: Okay.
But why? Why does she wear it like that? Manu: Her relatives, they gift her this dupatta (shawl) with money. It's a ritual or something.
Karl: Okay.
My next question was why do they use only 10 rupee notes on her dupatta that she was wearing
Minimum I put would be like a 100 rupees but for her, because it's the bride's mum, I gave her 2000 rupees all over that dupatta she's wearing.
So this priest is getting ready to do a ritual for the bride.
Karl: Bride
Gaurav: Her mother knows. Karl: There's a lot of rituals that happen during the day and I'm gonna bring them all to you.
What's happening here is that the priest and Nisha's uncle are blessing this wooden pole
And this pole is important because it's a center piece of the Hindu marriage rituals that you are gonna see later tonight.
And white people, this pole is not for pole dancing.
Now everybody is lovingly rubbing yogurt into the bride's hair
And this is not some kind of practical joke ever.
Yogurt is actually really really good for your hair.
This is the makeup room. What are you doing to her toes? Are they smelly? Are you putting perfume on them?
Cousin: I'm making her nail paint.
Karl: Just in case her husband smells her toes, she is putting something on her toes
and it's probably lavender or maybe pistahs, if you like pistachios. I don't know.
The bride is getting her makeup done and she has told me, "do not film"..
But you know I never listen to people who tell me that.
So we get a shot from the back. Nisha can't see what's happening.
I got kicked out of there.
The bride said I was causing a fuss and she doesn't want to be filmed until she's got all her makeup on.
I don't know why. She's beautiful anyway, without the makeup...anyway.
So Nisha and Vikas' relationship is an arranged one.
This is an arranged marriage.
Nisha met Vikas about six months ago and Vikas came to her house for them to meet.
And she decided then and there that, you know, "I'll marry Vikas. He's cool".
And so that was her decision.
And so for the last six months, they've been chatting on WhatsApp and getting to know each other better before the final day which is right now.
And so what is my opinion on arranged marriage, well?
I don't have a problem with them right? There are good arranged marriages and there are bad arranged marriages
It's like love marriage, like we have in the West.
There are bad love marriages and good love marriages and you know...
There are a lot of bad ones too.. a lot of divorce.
Arranged marriages aren't bad but what is bad here in India is that people are expected to get married.
Like, people are forced to get married here... men and women..
You can't remain a bachelor or bachelorette here.
because if you do, there's this big social stigma around being single here.
They think, you know, "oh why isn't he or she married? There must be something wrong with them..
What's wrong with them if they are not married? My god! Something's going on there"
And so I'm 33 and I'm not married. So that's quite peculiar for the Indian people.
But in the West, this now is perfectly fine but.. you know.. even we had arranged marriages a while ago in the West.
And it's only in recent times where those have stopped and there's not much pressure on people to be married anymore.
At least not for me, you know.
You know, even my parents, they were expected to get married and do the proper thing
and it's still like that in India.
There's no other option but marriage and that is the sad thing because...
some men and some women are being pushed into marriages they don't want to be in.
Just because their parents say so, or society says so.
And they don't have the guts to stand up against this society and against their parents
And they just go along with it and that, you know, that leads for a bad relationship, right? In the long run...
The thing about marriage is if you're gonna get married, you need to find someone who you're compatible with,
who you can get along with... and you know they should be your best friend as well as your lover.
And very soon, her new husband Vikas is gonna arrive on a baraat.
And what's a baraat in English? It's a wedding procession.. the groom's wedding procession.
He's gonna arrive on a big white horse and a lot of pomp and music and dancing
And he's gonna make his way here from another part of this village
So we are gonna go meet him soon.
Nisha is nervously waiting here for the rest of the rituals to start.
Alright, the party's starting. You can hear the music. Let's go check out the food.
And then let's go and meet the groom.
So you've got vegetables here.
You've got pickles here, limes, gulab jamun.
What is this? Is this rasgulla?
It's cham cham.
There's gajar halwa.
And jalebi.
So you've got coffee being made here and tea being made here.
You got raita, you got rice, rotis.
Khichdi, sabzi curry, vegetable curry
Shahi paneer, this is just for me I think.
We come along here and this guy is cooking cheela.
And cheela is basically like an Indian pancake, like a savory pancake...
And you can put some filling on it too.
And then we've got the noodle station so...
you can take noodles here as well. This wedding has it all.
And these are the ingredients you can put with your noodles...
spices, lettuce, capsicum, onion
And then we have the fruit section
These kids are enjoying some pani puri
This guy is making aloo tikki.
Karl: And dahi bhalla. Shopkeeper: Yeah, dahi bhalla.
Tasty? Karl: Yeah, I love it.
My god, everything's there. It's like a full buffet and then a full chaatwalla, street snack vendor there as well
And it's like.. it's like paradise. I love coming to these weddings for the food especially.
Anyway, right now, we are gonna go and meet the groom.
He's on his baraat, on his procession, on his way right now
And then the bride's gonna come out and they are gonna meet
and there's gonna be some more rituals and then full on dance party in the village here.
And you can hear the fireworks going off in the air.
A lot of the women are waiting here with the bride and we are waiting for the groom to turn up.
Then we are gonna do some rituals here and then we are gonna go back and party.
No! She's cursing me.
Aunty: It didn't fall!
I got to go now. The bride just shook the bangles over my girlfriend.
Everybody's waiting to meet the groom.
Now the bride and her family are coming to meet the groom's family and they are all the way down there on the stage and yeah..
Vikas and Nisha are gonna meet on the stage.
And now they are going to exchange rings.
And now he's gonna put this garland over Nisha's head and she's gonna do the same to him.
And the drone is back.
So we just had the final lot of the ceremonies now and there were a lot of rituals that happened
and now, we are all here with the bride who is behind me here.
We are walking to eat some food and then she is going to go to the husband's house.
and begin living there and this part of the wedding is called vidaai
and everybody is really sad when this happens and yeah..
all the girls and the parents and everybody will be crying and... yeah this is a sad time.
So the girl's now going to the groom's house
and actually part of the ceremony that you just saw...
the girl gets donated.. like.. what it's called.
She gets donated to the guy's family so yeah...
She is part of their family now and she will begin living there.
Gaurav: Oh sorry. I'll come today.
Aww, Nisha's gone now and she's going to her husband's house. And actually she is gonna be back in a couple of hours.
So what happens is some of her uncles and maybe her brothers,
they go over to the guy's house, they check it out and then they bring her back.
I don't know why they bring her back.
They bring her back to her house here.
And then her new husband, Vikas, he comes along, picks her up and takes her back finally to his house, again!
So twice in the same night but that's how it's done and yeah...
I'll miss Nisha but I'll be seeing her around
She's moving to a different part of India actually.
So don't know how often I'll see her these days but yeah...
I wish her all the best.
This one is the monkey. Catch the monkey!