12.21.2012 - 12.22.2012

Mumbai

Our first stop in Mumbai was with Mr. Ratan Tata, CEO of one of the largest conglomerates in India. He was just weeks away from retiring and had very thoughtful responses to most of our questions. He seemed nostalgic about his career and offered some helpful advice to any of us thinking about doing business in India - don't do it! He was quite critical of the corruption in the government and spoke candidly about the challenges they had faced trying to build businesses in India vs. in other parts of the world.

A typical sight in Mumbai.

Mumbai is the largest city in India with over 12 million people living within the city. It is home to the most expensive house in the world as well as the largest slum in Asia - the Dharavi slum. Like all of India, but maybe to a greater extent, Mumbai is a city of contrasts. 

It was quite humbling to drive past this just before sitting down to a four-course meal in our 5-star hotel.

A view of the city - the pollution in Mumbai was unbelievable, although I guess that's what will happen when you've got 12+ million people living in the same city! One of our trip mates grew up in China and commented a number of times on how clean the air seemed for a city of this size, talk about a perspective shifter!

After our meeting with Mr. Tata everyone returned to the hotel for some much needed R & R. We had all been going 100 miles an hour for the last week and were starting to get worn down...plus we had a wedding to get ready for!

One of the cultural highlights planned for the trip was an authentic Indian wedding reenactment. Because Indian wedding tend to last anywhere between 4-7 days, we decided to host our own wedding celebration - modified to fit our needs. The trip leaders did a phenomenal job coordinating all the details of the party; from the clothing to the food to the party favors, it was all just stunning. 

I haven't had this much fun playing "dress up" in a long, long time! It was just like a real wedding - the guys were all dressed and ready on time and the girls were all crammed into one hotel room stressed that their dress didn't fit, that their make up wasn't just right, or that their hair was off. I was flustered and upset because the local girls who were helping put us all together just couldn't understand why I had to wear a tank top to cover my midsection! They were clearly upset and told me a number of times that I would ruin the look of the wedding dress. It was really starting to get to me and I felt so grateful when Carol Robin stepped in and said very matter of factly, "it's for religious reasons". Indians are very religious by nature and after that one comment they had no problem accommodating me and my tank top! 

 Here's the band that really got the party started! They accompanied the "groom's family" for their dancing procession into the wedding hall and man were they good! The music was loud, exciting, and you just couldn't hear it without wanting to get up and groove!

My handsome groom who arrived to our wedding on the back of a white stallion. It really just doesn't get any more romantic than this! Although this was "mock wedding", I have to admit that the moment I saw Kylan walk into the wedding hall, my stomach did a little flip flop and I felt in an instant how grateful I was to be married to him and I happy I would be to marry him again and again and again!

 The ceremony itself was very beautiful and was accompanied by two authentic Brahmin priests. They sang the entire service in a dialect of Hindi so I didn't understand very much of what was being said, but it was all so beautiful and it somehow felt real and authentic.  My favorite part of the ceremony was the part where Kylan and I walked in a circle around the fire. These circles represent the seven vows of a Hindu marriage and also represent the idea that the couple will love each other for each of their seven lives. I would like to extend those seven lives into an eternity, but I loved the idea of a bride and groom continuing to love each other even after death.

The entire party was just perfect. 

The food was amazing, the dancing and entertainment were phenomenal, and the group dynamic could not have been better. When we originally discussed the idea of doing a wedding party with just our group, I worried that 32 people wasn't a bit enough group to really make it feel like a party. I could not have been more wrong. Everybody played into their roles brilliantly and the overall effect was that of a really intimate group of friends getting together for a serious wedding party! Following the entertainment, dinner and marriage ceremony the DJ cranked up the music and the evening ended with a killer dance party. We learned some Bollywood moves, we did Gangnam Style and everything in between - one of the girls in the group summed it up perfectly when she said that she didn't remember ever having this much fun dancing at a party without drinking! 

(The rest of the group went on a tour of the Dharavi Slum and to a cricket match between India and England, but due to Kylan's wicked case of "Delhi Belly' we spent our last day of the trip holed up in our hotel room trying desperately to help him survive! We were lucky to only have one case of food poisoning on the trip and it just happened to hit the groom!)