I had been waiting for Shinjini’s wedding eagerly since last year. She’s a friend I have known for many years now and when she called me to tell me about the wedding I knew it will be a very different and an intimate one and that her pets were going to be a very important part of it, which I was very excited about. She’s someone I have knows her as a deeply compassionate person and a nature lover in fact her whole family is, to the extent that her father had bought a new calf before their wedding and named it Navshi(Navneet+Shinjini).
She is also one of those people who have been acquainted to the kind of street photography I do and that was the particular reason she wanted me to shoot her wedding. She told me to shoot however I want it to ,” with all your quirkiness” She wanted me to shoot it as I shoot streets.
I had been wanting to shoot a wedding alone for some time as working with a team does have it’s perks when capturing a big wedding as you cannot risk missing out some important moments which might be happening at a different location. But it also sometimes takes away the single piercing vision of seeing and capturing a wedding. That’s what I was missing while shooting weddings with my team. One more reason was to test myself if my vision is still intact or it’s diluted when a bigger story like a wedding has to be told.
“I never had any dreams about my perfect wedding, nobody ever threatened me with the need to learn how to cook to regale my future husband or in laws. In stead, I always dreamt of living a free and meaningful life, with few rules yet many values. My family never made an effort to find me a groom, but they made every effort to make me a fierce, free and very loved woman. Navneet entered my life at a time when I had begun to lose a lot of gumption, when I was questioning my choices, overcoming a dark period and had decided to return to my roots- in my new role, I was to go to the back of beyond for field work in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal on a very exciting project that would track the needs of communities living along the Ganga, National Waterway I to be precise. Somewhere between my travels to Varanasi, Sahibganj, Patna, Bhagalpur and Farkka, I found my colleague Navneet's intellectual abilities and groundedness jolting my heart back to believing in the wild possibilities of making a difference. Between beers and much talk about our families, home, evening village smells and Liverpool.. we grew to care about each other's dreams and future. Our friendship drew a circle around our families and marriage was not the certain next step but it just made itself a possibility.”- Shinjini
“This wedding was incredibly special, our families-punjabi and bihari wholeheartedly accepted each other and us. My best friend, well, soul sister Madiha planned my entire trousseau with the lovely Aisha of Numaya Lucknow. Divyani, my friend from school and a stunning makeup artist made sure she made me look the prettiest I have ever felt! Nafisa Rachel William restored my mother's 40 year old wedding lehenga and my father and brother busied themselves fixing our house. Dad of course kicked off the celebrations by buying a cow whom he named Navshi to commemorate our wedding. My bua and nanima put together beautiful heirlooms from their own grandmothers and weddings. I was wrapped in love from all corners. Our friends made it all the way to Lucknow during the middle of a working week just to be with us on our day! Navneet's family brought with them the beautiful traditions of Bihar, my sindora had the finest pink sindoor, there was a handiya of dahi made specially by Navneet's phupha baba, endless boxes of laathi (laq) bangles (ordered in odd sizes for my mom!) from muzzafarpur, khaaja sweets, Hanuman mandir sweets and the delectable rasgullas of salempur... we sat on the same baagh (a traditional phulkaari sheet) that my parents sat on for their wedding, our dogs made random appearances throughout and we shared our little moments quietly and with laughs. Navneet is everything I dreamed of and never expected to find. He is family and no blessing can be greater than to see a smile with a tear on my parents faces as they embraced him, he has fit into our lives like it was just meant to be.”
“I knew Mayank would capture the key moments for me. The photos with my father, mother and brother will always be cherished..the ones with my bua, who built a road between our hearts throughout this run up to my wedding to calm me down, and also those with my dogs- Stubbs, Soxx and Shaq are precious. I couldn't have asked for a better wedding and wedding album. I know that these photos will remind us always of that motto we both hold dear, the one etched inside our engagement rings You'll Never Walk Alone (YNWA).”
