The Wedding

Ever since it was announced, we knew that we would be in Mumbai on the big day.  We hoped that something special would be arranged and had confidence that we’d not be disappointed.  Yesterday morning, before we set off on our adventure, we learned that the whole event would be screened live on the cinema screen in the theatre and we agreed that yes, we wanted to be there to watch.

We rushed in, showered and smartened ourselves up for the occasion.  I wore my new indigo blue kurta and white churidar, with matching twinkly blue sandals, wishing I’d bought a red dupatta too.  The white twinkly embroidered one was still stiff and too unyielding to wear, so that was that.

We reached the theatre in time to see the bride setting off to the Abbey and were pleased to find everywhere decorated with red, white and blue balloons, too.  Being the middle of the afternoon, this was perfect timing for us.

No BBC here, so we had to make do with commentary from Piers Morgan for CNN, but the thing was well done and we sat back, feeling proud to be British.  We stood for the National Anthem, sang Jerusalem and really felt part of the occasion.  We all oohed and aaahed at the beautiful bride, the handsome groom and shed a tear or two from time to time as you do on occasions like this.

The picture quality was slightly off, but this added to the experience for us.  At times, the scene resembled a wonderful piece of art, the subtle colours and greenery appearing to be parts of an oil painting.  We loved the trees in the abbey, the music was perfectly chosen and as the ceremony ended, glasses of champagne were brought to us, with “British canapes”: sausage rolls and brown sauce!

We waited for “the kiss” of course, and the second, surprise, bonus kiss too and as the family left the balcony, we set sail for Fujairah.  Leaving Mumbai behind, two British members of the ship’s company flew the Union Jack from the prow of the ship.

We were meeting friends for drinks and dinner, so freshened up and headed for one of the bars.  I noticed how dirty my hands were as I washed them, but thought nothing much of it.  Whilst in an Indian port, the ship becomes very sooty and in spite of extensive and thorough cleaning, the handrails outside were probably grimy.

Halfway through dinner, however, I noticed the tablecloth under my elbow.  I looked again at my hands.

Blue.  Indigo blue!  My beautiful indigo dye kurta was not exactly colourfast.

By the time we’d finished our meal, there was a considerable blue area around me.  My hands were blue and I allowed our amused dining companions to speculate where else was blue!

I showered before bedtime and managed to wash most of it off, but this morning still had blue underarms.  Another go with the shower scrubby and I thought I’d done, but apologies were needed for the normally spotless white towels which now are looking rather blue too.

One load of washing later, I realise that I now have a matching set of blue undies.  I rinsed the only slightly tinted churidar out by hand, fearing that if I put it in the machine with the whites there could be shrinkage.  Hanging it (them?) out to dry on the verandah just now, I wondered about contacting the captain.  If I hung them on the top deck, they’d make a wonderful sail…

What fun!