Nostalgia in Steel City: Returning to Pittsburgh for a Multicultural Indian Wedding

This summer, I went back to Pittsburgh after 20 years. I went for the wedding of my friend’s son. His brother is Baby S, and babysitting S was my first job in America. So, I feel a special connection to this family.

After a 4-hour flight delay, we drove via downtown and stopped by a bar to have dinner. It was nice to see the young crowd in what is deemed to be an aging old steel city.

I had moved to Pittsburgh when I was 22 and lived there for two years. Throughout the trip, we met acquaintances and friends I had made as a newlywed and a newly minted immigrant in America all those years ago. It was interesting to know that we had moved away but they hadn’t. And I don’t know if they understood my wonder mixed with nostalgia as I spent time with them. 

And it’s astounding what life does for self-awareness and situational awareness, I saw Pittsburgh in all its glory in 3D this time. The number of gorgeous bridges and the landscape is just stunning. My goodness, how many bridges does the city have?

It was lovely to drive past apartments and homes that we had stayed in and also to see their lives now. Life back then was all blonde wood floors, glass, and garish gold trims, unlike what is all ivory, aesthetic, and dark hardwood floors now.

We stayed at a hotel near the wedding venue. Every morning, we would meet blue-collar workers and their children in the lobby during breakfast. When I asked one of them what was going on, a guy told me that they were contract workers hired for repairing the bridges, brought in from out of town.

Little kids were all over the breakfast area. One boy who was on the next table to me had three giant bagels, cream cheese, and juice glasses, fully stacked up to the brim.

Was it possible that, since it was the beginning of summer vacation, the dads had brought these kids along? What were these children doing all day in the hotel rooms?

We arrived at the Baraat one morning where the groom is welcomed to the marriage by the wedding procession. As we danced our way in the parking lot, I took it upon myself to teach all the white people there how to dance like Indians. You lift one hand up as if you’re fixing a light bulb, and the other one stays low as if you’re closing a tap or a faucet. This dance step is timeless, and if there are any new ways to explain this, I haven’t learned them yet.

Throughout the day, obviously, we ate like this would be our last meal on the planet. And we touched the mangalasutra, the sacred thread of union, that was passed around on a plate across the hall. 

The guy is Indian, and the girl is white, both natives of Pittsburgh. The girl’s parents, now divorced, came with their own partners, but performed the wedding rituals like parents of the bride. This one thing that I find absolutely fascinating about Americans is that they can get along with their exes well enough to stay civil for their duties, well, atleast a majority of them.

In the evening, during the reception, I found a note in the guest book that sums up what a marriage is. Someone wrote, “It’s not the moments when you are together, it’s the moments when you “HAVE TO BE” together”.

And at this fascinating multicultural event, it was genuinely lovely to see young men and women who believe in companionship, compromise, and collaboration.

The wedding was a modest affair compared to the loud, pompous ones I am used to in Atlanta. But I guess everyone I met in Pittsburgh also seemed laid-back and chill.

The mountains can shape your character like this, I guess.

Pittsburgh is special because I learned to do a lot of things for the first time. It was also where I heard my first son’s cries as I gave birth to him and faintly understood what it was to be a mother. 

But God bless everyone who lives here through the winters. This is not something a warm-blooded human like me, who grew up in 120 degree weather, can ever get used to. 

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