work in progress

It's been 3 days since I've written a blog and that's due to a few reasons.

Firstly on monday I was sick as a dog. The doctor said I caught some infection from the food I ate at the wedding on Sunday night. He gave me some drugs, told me to stay away from alcohol, dairy products, meat and fruit. Instead I was put on a diet of water with sugar and salt, dry toast with balck tea, soup for lunch and light yellow dahl for dinner....sounds delcious doesn't it??

Following doctors orders does pay off. The next day I was right as rain...and exactly that happened. It rained and rained and hasn't stopped raining for the past few days. It's a blessing though as it cools things down from around 40 degrees to 32. Plus it helps when you are running around the palace working all day. And there's been plenty of that going too.


I haven't had much time to step out of "P" world (that's Palace world) and into the real India. But the times that I have I've been met with bad urine smells, lingering cows, friendly locals and the cutest kids you could ever imagine.

Today Lynne and I pretty much finished all our work with the Palace people. The music is complete, the scripts are waiting to be approved, studio in Delhi is all booked and so are the flights.

Late afternoon we headed into India and did some last minute shopping. I bought some cool cooking utensils for my Indian dinners which I can't wait to use.

Tomorrow afternoon we fly out to Delhi to begin the recording and finish off some interviews. I won't admit this to Lynne but I'll be sad to leave Udaipur tomorrow....it really is a cool place.

day of rest

My best way to spend a Sunday is to sleep in, cook a nice lunch, eat, swim and rest. And today was no different.

At 10am Shannon and I booked ourselves into an Indian cooking school. We learnt how to make the most delicious butter paneer, traditional dahl, dry fried okra with mustard seeds and my favourite chapatis (kinda like a flat Indian pita bread).

The morning was spent cooking and learning about spices but the best part was when we got to eat all the food we'd made after the class was over. I can't wait to get back and cook a big Indian banquet for everyone.

In the afternoon we swam in the marble pool at the palace hotel.

Later that afternoon Lynne's friend Ambika invited us to a another wedding that evening. This one was a little different from the nights before. It was a Rajput wedding so it was very traditional in some ways. Even though the alcohol was flowing freely, on arrival the men were seperated from the women. I went my way with Ambika's husband who is brother with Mr Gujendra the manager of the Crystal Palace. The girls followed Ambika into the women's area or the Zenana section.

The wedding was very colourful (as most Indian weddings are) and very ceremonial. The groom arrived on this huge elephant. It didn't take long before he was whisked away by the women of the bride's family and into the Zenana where he spent the rest of the night. You'll have to read Lynne's account of the wedding to find out what went on in there as I only snuck in for 5 min to have sticky beak.

I was sitting at a table with all men of course. Mr Gujendra and his 5 brothers. I ate and drunk and chatted with Dr Bupendra who is the manager of the Palace Museum. So overall it was a good networking night in a relaxed atmosphere.

Tomorrow it's back to work with a full on week of script approvals, music searches and recordings.

Monsoon Wedding

Saturday night in Udaipur and with the full moon shining, I spruced myself up in my linen pants and shirt and headed towards the ferry. Lynne, Shannon and I had been invited to the monsoon wedding that has taken over the City Palace for the past few days. We were all so excited. Tonight was the final installment of the 3 day event - The Wedding Ceremony. It was being held at Jagmindir Palace a maginficent building in the middle of Lake Pichola.

As we arrived to catch the ferry, traditional Rajasthani musicians were playing their drums to welcome the groom and his family. The boat trip over to the palace was amazing. The boat was deocoratd with garlands of flowers and the whole palace was lit up with lights and coloured with flowers.


As we arrived we were greeted with musicians and were handed a corsage of orchards and a traditional Indian wedding gift, kind of like a bomboniera. A tika was placed on our forehead to mark the auspicious event.

The palace garden was boarded with 6 buffet areas and the tables set for around 600 guests. This was not a small wedding. The groom came from the 25th richest family in India and the bride from the 23rd biggest!


The food consisted of all vegetarian dishes from India, the Middle East, Mexico, Sth East Asia and even the Greece. Non-alcoholic drinks were only served and if you wanted something a little harder you had to make your way out of the garden and around the other side of the palace where a small bar was sectioned off. It wasn't specified but it seemed that only men were allowed in this area. Of course I couldn't resist but to take a look. I made some new friends as I sipped my vodka fresh lime soda and chatted to the cute Indian men dressed in their Kurtas.

The cermony was followed by professional photos and traditional Rajasthani dancers and musicians. It was truly the most maginficent wedding I've ever seen.




But don't go thinking that the bride and groom have had it easy. The gossip is that the couples parents didn't approve of their relationship as they are both from different casts. The groom from Rajasthan and the bride from Maharastra. It's hard to believe that in this day and age people are still so traditional. If it was a Greek family the parents would be over the moon that they are both from the same country let alone the same province. It took their parents only 6 years to approve the wedding. So the hopeless romantic in me couldn't help but think. Since it wasn't an arranged marriage and their families had all the money in the world, maybe true love still does exist.