Star-Crossed

The moment finally arrived this past fall: my boyfriend of four years and I decided to take the plunge into wedded bliss. Great, we thought. We'll pick a date and plan the perfect wedding. We had agreed to have a traditional South Indian wedding in keeping with my ethnic heritage, and we were entranced by the deeply symbolic steps around the sacred fire, the henna, the sweet saffron-flavored delicacies, and the endless yards of colored silks.

As we set about making this dream a reality, we ran headlong into one major obstacle. It wasn't that we couldn't find the right hue of pink taffeta for the bridesmaids' gowns, or the most elegant ice sculpture, or even the best Beatles cover band. Rather, our dilemma was more fundamental: we had to find an auspicious date on which to marry.

Being Indian, my family consults the panchangam, or calendar, to determine an auspicious date for just about everything: a housewarming, the purchase of a new car, the best date to travel to India. Why curse an undertaking, the logic goes, when you can, with not too much effort, avoid those days when the planets aren't aligned in your favor? An event as momentous as a marriage, therefore, had to be held on an auspicious date.

Being German, and atheist, my fiancé consults calendars to figure out on what day of the week his birthday falls. Despite my upbringing, I'm much the same; after all, how many New York City lawyers can get away with telling their clients that they can't attend to them that day because the stars aren't in order? We both began to squirm a bit. Sure, we wanted an Indian wedding, but could we--two wisecracking, somewhat logical, totally earthbound young professionals--abandon dates that otherwise would be perfectly convenient and likely to have sunny skies because of astrology? I tentatively broached the subject to my mother, who declared--a bit theatrically--that she couldn't in good conscience allow us to marry on an inauspicious date. Why bother with an Indian wedding at all, she asked sorrowfully, if we were prepared to ignore such an important part of it?

Continued on page 2: »