Introduction
Since the spring of 2007, my niece Corinna Riginos announced that she would be getting married to a talented Ph.D. environmentalist from India, Siva Sunderasan.
Henceforth, alot of planning was set in motion in four continents (America, Europe, Africa, Asia) leading to the “M-Day” on the 20th of January 2008 in Madras (now Chennai), India. Corinna is Greek-American, while me and my brother Nikos are based in Athens, Greece; the couple carry field-work in Kenya, Africa and Siva’s prominent family is based in Madras.
On a minor scale, I took the initiative to coordinate the Greek Group consisting of Ivi (my wife), Nikos (my brother), Peter & Angie (my cousins) their two sons George and Constantinos and our friends Ferie, Floretta, Lilian, Lily and Mirka. To this Group, later on our new friends from Izmir, Turkey, Turgut and Arzu were added, bringing the total head count to 14 (aka “The Dirty Dozen + 2″).
At the Athens International Airport, ready to board a Gulf Air flight for Chennai via Bahrain. From L to R: Ivi, Peter, Mirka, Floretta, Byron (me), Lilian and Lily.
Our trip commenced on Tuesday 15th January and ended on Saturday 2nd February 2008. It had two distinct sections: The Wedding and the Tour of Southern India. The wedding was a great Riginos-Sundaresan Family event. Relatives and friends came from the four corners of the world: Australia, India, Africa, Turkey, Greece, USA. For us Westerners it was a great opportunity to experience a traditional Indian-Hindu ceremony, to reunite with relatives and friends after many years and of course to meet and get to know our many new relatives from India.
For the second part, the Tour of Southern India we were a bit fortunate. The year before, Feb. 2007, my brother Vasili and his wife Alice (parents of Corinna and Cynthia), took an extended trip to India organized by the Archeological Institute of America combined with a visit to Madras for a first “get to know each other” meeting with Siva’s parents, Ramani and Lakshmi (Lata). In this venture, the professional services of Exotic Journeys were engaged. Alice was kind enough to link me with the appropriate persons (Mr. Kamalesh, Manager of E-J, Bangalore and Mr. Narender Koumar our precious Tour Guide). Thus a Southern India tour itinerary was gradually formulated.
The Purpose of this Web Log is to share this wonderful experience with Relatives and Friends! Please click here to read more: Corinna’s Wedding Log with Byron’s pictures.
The Byron E. Riginos Blog 