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When she took her seat under the canopy for friends and family to rub turmeric on her face, she wore aviators and danced in her seat as the D.J. There were plenty of close-ups of her hands decorated in henna, which had taken six hours to paint. She danced more and posed as the Steadicams rushed forward for a special-effect shot, and then stepped back to pan out. Pfizer danced her way to the poolside to a band of live drummers that led the way. While the Haldi is a staple of weddings in the north where turmeric is applied for a blessing, modern brides are increasingly blurring regional differences to visually evocative effect in the Instagram age.Ī small group of friends and family gathered under a yellow canopy by a small pool, but the main audience was really the cameras: This was content for the wedding highlight video.ĭr. She had warmed up with a Haldi ceremony early in the evening. Pfizer was at once the bride, the lead performer, and the director of her own show. The highlight was the wedding eve, when about 200 guests packed into a small ballroom for a talent show of dance performances.
LIVE PERFORMER FOR INDIAN WEDDING MOVIE
Their main wedding was still subdued: a short Muslim prayer after the marriage contracts were signed, followed by a delicious buffet lunch as a violinist played the latest movie soundtracks. “I took about two months before I said ‘yes,’” Dr. It was an arranged marriage, but with modern elements: The couple had time to get to know each other, and the bride had the final veto. Pfizer was the niece of one of his father’s classmates - and he used that connection to ask for her hand.
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After they grew up and became physicians, he learned that Dr. He told his family that he would marry her. When he was younger, the groom, Roshan Salahudeen, 29, had seen his future bride, then a teenager, performing on television. “Her father would tell them ‘she is winning competitions - let her continue for a little more,’” her mother recalled.ĭance also played a role in the couple’s matchmaking. Pictures of competitions when she was younger adorn the walls of his small dance studio. The bride started training as a dancer even before kindergarten - a large stretch of it under the tutelage of Mr. One of her grandmothers performed with a folk ensemble in the 1960s and 1970s. On the morning of the rehearsal, national newspapers were dominated by reports of extremist Hindu monks calling for violence against Muslims and of churches vandalized as the country’s minority Christians gathered for Christmas.ĭance runs in Dr.
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It was a heartwarming antidote to the heightened divisions in India that have been stoked by Hindu-majority politics, especially in the north. Aishwarya Ragesh, a friend of the bride’s for 15 years, picked up her purse and rushed to make it to her family’s Hindu worship as soon as the rehearsal was over.
LIVE PERFORMER FOR INDIAN WEDDING PROFESSIONAL
Jobin Johnson, a professional dancer who grew up with the bride, missed the first Christmas lunch of his married life to be there. The final rehearsal happened around noon on Christmas Day. Her childhood friends performing for her wedding were a mix of Hindus and Christians.
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