Day 5 – showtime!

The girls left early to get their hands dirty – with henna!!!! Christian and I went to the city to shop for a cool outfit for him so he didn’t have to go naked to the wedding. Needless to say, Christian found something fitting in the first shop we went to – as it had to be slightly changed, we got half an hour to spend in the area while they promised to do all necessary changes. We have revisited the market place near Laxmi road – which was an island of calmness at this hour. If someone asked me for the most spiritual place in Pune, I would certainly send them here – although this was not spiritual in the sense of a temple; still it oozed calmness nowhere present in the area.



Having only bought 2.75 GB of Memory capacity with me for my camera for two weeks was not a good plan. After 5 days my 256MB memory card started to get more valuable for me than information about my name and profession to any street merchant in Pune. You think, Laxmi road would be a good place to buy any electronic equipment? Think again!!! Christian and I gave up the hunt for more memory pretty quickly at the sight of one clothes shop after the other.

We met the girls at home after their henna session – especially Blanca was excited due to the fact that she got diagnosed a very fertile woman using a deeply scientific Indian method. Go Blanca Go!!!



Here you see us fully dressed for the big night out – the night where we would perform our dance routine and would become famous for all eternity. This picture was taken at the gates of the venue – we just bumped into Preetis family. Notice the coolness factor on Mr. Bantwals face – well maybe there was a llama walking by behind me:



Needless to say, I lost myself amongst all the colours, the scent of spices and people of immense beauty and fame and went off hunting for the picture of the day. After some mingling with Bollywood personalities like Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta it was time for the happy couple to come out of hiding and present themselves to the people (and the paparazzi)! Kasturi made a stylish entrance accompanied by her mum and dad, who is extremely fond of dancing. All night long whenever there was even a hint of music he would take off his jacket and dance. By the way, rumour says Kasturi was wearing a Sari and jewellery of about 5 kilos.



After the arrival of Paritosh, they sat down and let the paparazzi photo orgy take place. Paritosh sowed us how to wear those weird trousers that came with our Kurtas. Eugenio and I called them the MC Hammer trousers for obvious reasons …



In the meantime somebody took my seat but was not really happy about it by the looks on his face. Anyway, here is a nice picture of father and daughter.



Drum roll – let the show begin! As a starter a picture was painted while some music was played. This was to capture the atmosphere of the evening. The painting was given to Kasturi and Paritosh later on so they can always remember this event.



Afterwards there was a dance performance by a traditional north India performer. If you move your head quickly from the left to the right and back you can see her dance ...



The highlight of the evening followed – the life of Kasturi and Paritosh performed by the sister of Kasturi (Amruta) and her friends. An amazing performance that set the dancing standards pretty high just before our sensational dance performance. We went backstage for a final practice and so missed Kasturi’s dance for Paritosh. Luckily Thorsten took some pictures with my camera.



Finally it was our turn. Let’s just say that it was worse than we thought and still the people loved it. So in the end we were happy.



Afterwards Kasturis German friends hijacked the ceremony and showed some traditional German wedding games for the next 5 hours.



After the playful part a kind of spiritual leader popped out of thin air and was lead to the stage by Kasturis mother. I can only guess that he emphasised the seriousness of a lifelong connection between the love birds as he did not get any laughs. He had an impressive charisma though from where I was standing.



This concluded the show on the stage and it was time to fill our boots with some serious Indian food while the crowd kept dancing. Did I mention Kasturis dad likes to dance? I did? Oh, what the heck? You can see him in the middle of this photo – slightly out of focus because of the speed of the dance …



Here is a photo of a classic beauty and her Prince of Persia. He seems to be very happy ;-)



This is what happens when you trust your camera with someone else so you can be on the group photo. Well, at least I am on the photo – unlike Blancas left hand …



Talking about hands – notice the fine henna on Kasturis arm? Paritoshs name is hidden in it letter by letter. It is tradition that during the wedding night He has to look for his name on her arms. I can tell you this sounds easier than it is.



Here are some pics of Day 5 – where I managed to shoot an immense number of pictures thereby forcing myself to buying more memory the next day ...