Metal Bride

Moon and Sun

Rowan

It is time.

I study my reflection in the mirror. I hardly recognize myself, decorated as I am. My red turban looks like a crown, adorned with a golden pin to hold it together. My kurta, the long, almost dress-like shirt of ceremony, is a golden yellow, accented with stitched red detailing around the collar and in a straight line down my chest, ending over my abdominal muscles. The light gold pijamo leggings are silky soft. I wear more jewelry today than I have worn on all of my other days of life combined. A necklace from my grandmother, linear cuffs of gold on my ears, bracelets, even an anklet. I wear my engagement ring from Luis. He told me he has a plan for how to turn the rings from engagement rings to wedding rings, but he has left this a surprise to me.

Luis. My love. He orchestrated so much of this, worked exhaustively with my mother and grandparents to make sure he was following tradition and adding his own touches to this ceremony without appropriating a culture that is not his.

It was hard to engineer this ceremony. So many of the rituals of a Hindu wedding ceremony are distinguished by whether the bride or groom performs them. What are two grooms to do? But we navigated through it. Some things we chose to avoid. I opted to wear primarily yellow instead of the bridal red. I wanted henna detailing badly, but I was worried I would look foolish to my more devout relatives. So Luis asked if we could both have the henna applied. Instead of letting me single myself out with a feminine tradition, Luis bears its significance beside me.

I had my left hand done. He had his right. I look down at the ink on my skin and think of the matching pattern on my love's right hand. I gently press my lips to it, wondering if he can feel the kiss across the temple.

"You look amazing," my mother says, leaning over my shoulder. Dressed in a lilac sari, she looks at home in this busy dressing room. All around me, my party gets its final touches together. My grandfather plants a kiss on my grandmother's forehead. The two are dressed in matching green formalwear. Gold gleams everywhere, though no one wears as much of it as I do.

My grandfather steps outside, then returns a few minutes later with a grin. "He's ready. Let's go."

The arrival of the groom and the groom's guests is supposed to be a parade. This was another adjustment of ours. Luis did not feel he was versed enough in the tradition to lead his own parade, nor could either of us figure out how we were supposed to manage organizing two of those celebrations. So Luis and his family wait for us in the temple.

It's a give and take, even now. I wear splashes of bridal red, but I get the groom's arrival. A careful balance to honor the fact that we are both men.

This dressing room has an entrance that leads out into the bright spring day. We will walk down the sidewalk around the block, singing and literally parading, and enter through the temple's proper entrance. This parade, called a baraat, is more familiar to me than many of the other facets of today. I have been a part of two different baraats, both for cousins.

In Hindu weddings, it is literally the more the merrier. I think my list of friends and loved ones caps out at about two dozen, but we have two hundred people in attendance today.

"Ready?" my mother asks, pausing at the door.

I smile. "I'm ready."

My uncle begins playing a lively folk tune on a violin. I push open the door and grin as the sunlight falls on my face. The people on the sidewalk, just passerbys going about their Sunday, laugh and cheer as I lead my family and friends out in our baraat.