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BANGALORE, India—As an international student in my first year at Harvard, I only came close to feeling culture shock once. Not because someone said something ignorant and not because a new continent overwhelmed me. All it took was a short exchange with my roommates.

“My aunt’s getting engaged on New Year’s Day,” I told them, “I’m going to be so exhausted.”

They blinked at me. “How do you know your aunt is getting engaged?” one of them asked.

I had to wait until I finished laughing before I could explain. For starters, her marriage was arranged, but it’s common for Hindus to have engagement ceremonies even after the actual proposal. It’s such an ordinary thing to me that I hadn’t even thought about how un-Western it is.

I don’t know if my explanation helped. There’s nothing like an Indian wedding, whether it’s a one-day arya samaj affair or a three-day extravaganza. Six months after her engagement, my aunt was getting married over the course of three days. I’m her closest unmarried female relative, which made me the kalashgiti—also known as she who sits by the bride’s family and looks slightly out of place. The kalashgiti’s very important wedding task is holding a plate and being on hand at all times, the latter of which I’ll admit I’m not very good at. But the job chooses you, and not the other way around, so I accepted the burden—in this case, a plate—given to me.

With it came the occupational hazard of being in the rice zone. At South Indian weddings, the actual marriage of the couple is finalized with the guests blessing them with rice grains, and there is a certain amount of throwing involved. It’s a little like sitting in the splash zone at Sea World, except with, well, rice.

Once I was done surreptitiously getting the rice out of my blouse, though, I was free to go. My aunt was safely married, and my plate was put away. It was time for a less-traditional family function tradition that my brother and I have started to cultivate. At some point we’d get tired of the rich food served on banana leaves, and slip away to go to the nearest fast food place. So, yes, my aunt had just been married, and my brother and I were eating fries at Burger King.

Like I said, there’s nothing like an Indian wedding.

Stuti R. Telidevara ’20 is a Crimson Blog Comp Director in Cabot House.