May 31st - Wedding Festivities, Indira Gandhi Medical College, and Shopping Round 2

        Dr. Jain's niece is getting married next month and today was the start of the various functions that will be happening throughout the next month leading up to the wedding. Before the invitations are given out to everyone the first invitation must be presented to God and that was what today's function was for. The reception hall was gorgeous and we kind of forgot that we were in India for a bit until we realized that everyone was talking in Hindi/Marati and we had no idea what was going on.I wish we were going to be here for the wedding but sadly it's happening right after we get back to Pittsburgh.  

The reception hall. There was a wedding happening in the morning as we went inside

The stage with a picture of Dr. Jain's father. The bride's grandather

The crowd

Lord Ganesha (The remover of obstacles)

The cutest baby in the room. The bride's cousin

All the women in the front row

The bride with aunt (red) and mother (green)

Outside the reception hall with Dr. Jain

       After the function today I went to Indira Gandhi Medical College which is the other government medical college in Nagpur. Dr. Shrikande, the head of the Pathology department attended the Global Sickle Cell Disease Conference in Atlanta this past March and wanted me to help analyze some population screening data to publish a paper. They have screened over a 100,000 individuals in the Nagpur area to determine the sickle cell trait prevalence in the region and among the various caste groups. I spent the entire afternoon with her and her team going over the data and making a plan for what needs to be done. It was super super hot and the power kept going out throughout the afternoon making it even worse. Working in this heat is super exhausting and I don't know how they get anything done here. 

Dr. Shrikhande, Myself, Dr. Amit and Helen

           After finishing up at IGMC, Dr. Jain sent her driver and Amarapalli, one of the MD Pediatric doctors out to take us shopping. We went to Sanskruti, a shop near IGMC to find my sister a chaniya choli. I didn't end up getting a picture of the one that she bought since they kept it to stitch the blouse but the fabric below is one of the ones that she really liked. I bought a few more saris but I only got a picture of one of them but I'll put more up once we pick up the pieces on Sunday night.

Pretty blue chaniya choli fabric

I bought a couple more saris but this was my favorite with the elephants on the border

We found a cow along the entrance to the hospital

Dr. Jain had fresh lychee for us to eat. First time we got to do this. 

Fresh lychee is the way to go :-)