During our wedding rehearsal in the Catholic church, the priest asked if I wanted a reading from Sikh scripture in the ceremony. ‘No, we’re having a whole other wedding which should cover that,’ I said. Given that half our family and friends lived in Singapore and the other half in Australia, my partner and I had decided it would be more convenient for our guests to stay put while we shuttled between countries to say ‘I do.’
“Shuttling” is an apt way to describe my life up till that point. I shuttled back and forth between Eastern and Western cultures, growing up in Singapore’s small and conservative Sikh community, but attending American international schools. At home, I learned how to roll rotis and avoid laughing too loudly; at school, my skirt hem found a new place above my knees
The two-wedding plan was another reflection of my double life. This way we could avoid a tug-of-war over rituals and customs between families. I was aware of how important it was for my parents to see me married in Sikh tradition, circling the Guru Granth Sahib behind my husband. Similarly, my Australian in-laws would appreciate witnessing us exchanging vows in English on a church pulpit.
At one point, I toyed with the idea of merging traditions – a Google search of interfaith weddings transported me to a Pinterest universe of hennaed hands lighting unity candles and vibrant jasmine garlands resting on white tulle gowns. Painstaking attention had been paid to fuse cultures, and the results were breathtaking, and oh-so-Instagrammable. But surely a glimpse at the outtakes would reveal more conflicts and disagreements than the bride and groom let on. The term “worlds collide” does not suggest grace or joy, no matter how many filters you put on a picture.
So when the priest asked me that question, I was taken aback. Of all people, I thought he’d be most agreeable to our “to each their own” approach to interfaith weddings. ‘Think about it,” he urged. “It’s a nice way to make your family feel included.” Although it was too late at that point to add another reading, his comment made me realize that having two weddings was less about catering to everyone, as we so nobly told ourselves. It was about taking the path of least resistance.
Because as it turned out, the blurring of cultural lines was inevitable. At the party my in-laws held in their home after the rehearsal, I was surprised to see a platter of crispy pakoras floating around. My husband blushed; pakoras were not the common hors d’oevres of his childhood, and he thought the effort to cater to my parents’ tastes was a bit obvious. But my parents looked as if they had been paid a compliment.
‘These are very nice,’ my mother said, going for seconds. Then she took the opportunity to ask me once more to consider changing outfits for the reception. Punjabi weddings involve multiple wardrobe changes, and my family considered it a travesty that a bride would only wear one outfit all day.
Something must have been in the air just then – love, or the smell of a fresh batch of pakoras frying – but I found myself agreeing to try on a lengha that my mother had brought along in case I changed my mind.
It was so elegant and flattering that it was hard to imagine why I had resisted it in the first place. At the reception the following evening, we made a last minute request to the DJ to play a Bollywood set. He was happy to oblige, and my family was somewhat relieved to hear familiar tunes after witnessing the Bohemian Rhapsody mosh pit.
A week later, at our Singapore wedding, my grandmother and my mother-in-law were seated at the same table. Their backgrounds couldn’t be more different: my grandmother was married off in her teens and never knew her birthdate or how to spell her name. In the 1960’s, while my grandmother was bearing the last of her children on the mud floors of her village in Punjab, my mother-in-law was a computer programmer, writing code on weekdays in her London office and going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais on Saturday nights.
There was no common language between the two women but through an exchange of nods and smiles, they managed a silent conversation. Watching them communicate their joy for the occasion, I felt a profound sense of appreciation for history and fate, and I wondered why I ever wanted to keep my worlds so far apart.
