July 16, 2008

After the wedding, the bride went back home!

Last week I mentioned the Fijian-Indian friend with whom I first became acquainted when we were both at school, and who now lives with his family in Sydney, Australia.

We began writing to each other when we were both in the equivalent of middle school - it’s been so long ago now but I’m pretty sure I was in the New Zealand equivalent of 8th Grade. One of the teachers at my school had spent the previous year teaching in Suva, the capital of Fiji, and before he left he took down the names and addresses of the kids he had taught, and shared them out amongst us, in the hope that it would encourage some “international friendships”.

My (new) friend and I were the only pair that actually kept writing to each other, so our teacher’s plan probably wasn’t a great success in terms of numbers. But it is interesting, that of all my “friends” at school, the only one I have maintained contact with over the years was the one who went to a school many thousands of miles away from me.

Even more remarkably, we didn’t actually have a lot in common. For the two of us though, it just seemed more important that we had a friend in another country.

In the early 1980s, he decided he wanted to get married, and was gracious enough to send an invitation to his buddy in New Zealand. This was actually my first trip outside New Zealand, so I was pretty excited about that, and I received an unexpected treat when I found out that he was having a traditional Hindu wedding, which was certainly something I had never expected.

In fact, as we both had attended catholic schools, I had been expecting a regular, western-style “church wedding”.

Boy, was I in for a surprise!

I guess a little of Fiji’s history is appropriate here. In the late 1800s, and early 1900s, large numbers of migrant workers were imported to Fiji from India to work on the sugar plantations.

By the time my friend and I became acquainted, the Indian population and the native Fijian population each made up about half of the total population of Fiji.

Because the Indians had a little more “get up and go” than the more laid back natives, many of the businesses around town were now in fact owned by Indians, while it tended to be the native population that did the manual work.

My friend’s father owned a tailor shop in downtown Suva, which explained why he often sent me a shirt of some description as a birthday present. In fact I still have a couple of them!

The flight from New Zealand to Fiji was about three hours long, and after landing at Nadi International Airport, I then had a three hour car trip over to the other side of the main island to Suva, where I was to stay with my friend and his family.

The day after my arrival, he had his “stag night” - I don’t think he actually referred to it as that, but given his description of “my last party as a single man” that is what I equated it to.

In New Zealand, a “stag night” usually consists of the groom, his best man and a few male friends going to one or more pubs (Americans call them “bars”), getting as drunk as possible, and hoping they will all wake up in time to get to the wedding so they don’t miss out on the food.

(And that is about as romantic as the average New Zealand male ever gets! I’m a little different - I don’t drink alcohol, so I usually skip the stag do and aim straight for the food. Who cares about the bride, the bridesmaids and what they were, or weren’t, wearing. The free food is the important part!).

I was a bit surprised that my friend said we would be spending the whole day preparing for the (stag) party, and he and his friends would kill a goat that morning for the event. I asked him how many people were going to be at the party.

“Oh, about 1,500.” he calmly replied.

I was thinking that this was going to be some booze-up!

As it turned out, it was a very civilised family affair. A church (perhaps I should say “temple”) hall had been hired, and mom, dad and all the kids would come, sit at a table and eat, then leave to make room for the next bunch of people. No music, no alcohol apart from a very small amount of ceremonial kava, and everyone of all ages, male and female, enjoyed themselves.

As part of the religious side of the ceremonies, about three days before his actual wedding, my friend had a “bulb” tied to his wrist. The way he explained it was that this was part of the gods giving their blessing to the union. If his bulb started to blossom into a flower before his wedding, he and his new wife would be able to sleep together on the wedding night and begin their new life together immediately.

If not, they had to wait until either the bulb did blossom, or another ceremony a couple of days after the wedding was held.

Unfortunately, my friend’s bulb was showing no sign of blossoming on the day of his wedding.

“Well,” he said to me. “I have no use for my wedding bed tonight so you might as well have it!”

His wife had to go home with her family, so I was going to have this huge bed all to myself that night.

Awesome!

He had also been talking with his wife’s family about me and they had all decided that I could tag along on the honeymoon, once that started. So this was becoming a real adventure for me.

And that will be a story for next week.......

by FRANK SHANLY

frank@news-banner.com

Email Frank Shanly

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