An Indian Wedding at Chor Bazaar

The first of the ladies in question


For sometime I had been keen on getting an Apsara to add to our Buddha.  Apsaras are beautiful, supernatural beings and are skilled dancers and musicians and are often depicted dancing or taking flight to act as messengers to the gods. There are two types of Apsaras; Laukika (worldly), of whom thirty-four are specified, and Daivika (divine), of which there are ten.

Apsaras are also common in Khmer, Indonesian and Malay culture where they are the wives of the devout in the afterlife. They are similar to the muses of Greek mythology.







The lucky lady!

The process of obtaining  my Apsara was kind of like an Indian arranged marriage.  I was sent photos of large number of suitable ladies complete with information on where they were from and their background and some insight onto their substance, well the type of rock from which they were carved. I then organised to meet two of them in person with their "family" in attendance. After some deliberation I decided on one and arrangements for the dowry were made, except in this case I was paying Ifran the shop owner. Preparations were made for the wedding, in this case we had a base made and she was mounted on a stainless steel pole. The lady was delivered to the house of the groom as part of an elaborate procession.  Okay, in this case she came by auto rickshaw and the procession was just normal Mumbai traffic









She is now happily in the house but, although I am satisfied, I still like the other one too. Maybe I will get all Salt Lake City and get the second one as well!












While at Chor. I made some other interesting acquisitions. I picked up two great Parker fountain pens in mint condition and never used from an old Parsi guy’s collection.  They were made between 1933 and 1953 and were there top of the line pen of the time, gold nib and clasp. They are a somewhat iconic Parker Vacumatic  made from celluloid with the iconic banded coloured/see through design so you can see the ink in the reservoir. A breakthrough in days pre- plastic.

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