Needless to say that all these ceremonies had been accomplished
long ago in the family to whose marriage party we were invited in
Bagh. All these rites are sacred, and most probably we, being
mere strangers, would not have been allowed to witness them. We
saw them all later on in Benares--thanks to the intercession of
our Babu.
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When we arrived on the spot, where the Bagh cere-mony was celebrated,
the festivity was at its height. The bridegroom was not more than
fourteen years old, while the bride was only ten. Her small nose
was adorned with a huge golden ring with some very brilliant stone,
which dragged her nostril down. Her face looked comically piteous,
and sometimes she cast furtive glances at us. The bridegroom, a
stout, healthy-looking boy, attired in cloth of gold and wearing
the many storied Indra hat, was on horseback, surrounded by a whole
crowd of male relations.
The altar, especially erected for this occasion, presented a queer
sight. Its regulation height is three times the length of the
bride's arm from the shoulder down to the middle finger. Its
materials are bricks and white-washed clay. Forty-six earthen
pots painted with red, yellow and green stripes--the colors of
the Trimurti--rose in two pyramids on both sides of the "god of
marriages" on the altar, and all round it a crowd of little
married girls were busy grinding ginger. When it was reduced to
powder the whole crowd rushed on the bridegroom, dragged him from
his horse, and, having undressed him, began rubbing him with wet
ginger.
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