After their wedding in Jalandhar, Nishita Sikka and Karan Bal travelled to his ancestral village and set out on foot for a gurdwara approximately 1.6 kilometres from the family home. Bal’s father and grandparents had followed the same route after their weddings, a tradition the family calls Jathere.
Both had spent nearly a decade in the United States before returning to Punjab to marry. Sikka left Jalandhar for graduate school in 2017, while Bal moved from Amritsar with his family the previous year. They met online in California in 2022 and began talking over a shared love of The Office. Their conversations soon stretched to their Punjabi upbringing, food, mezcal, weekends in Napa and chole kulche.
Their relationship deepened during a three-month period when Sikka was in India. California and India offered few convenient windows for conversation, yet Bal kept finding them. He saved things that happened during his day to tell her when she woke up, while she began to see his consistency as a form of commitment. “Somewhere along the way, Karan stopped feeling like someone I was dating and became the person who made America feel a little more like home,” she says.
They discussed marriage without waiting for a formal proposal. Sikka’s parents travelled to the US to meet Bal, and both families met the following day. For the couple, bringing their parents into the relationship carried more meaning than planning a grand reveal when both already knew the answer.
Sikka and Bal are no use to each other when one needs to be talked out of something. A trip gathers a restaurant list, bars they have heard about, clothes chosen for dinner and usually a purchase that both declare defensible. Trivia becomes far more serious than it deserves, largely because Bal is full of obscure facts and Sikka remains convinced that she is smarter. “We have never been especially interested in being the sensible couple,” they admit. “We would rather have the adventure, order another round, wear the outfit and enjoy it together.”
That appetite carried into the wedding, though Punjab mattered to them for reasons beyond the pleasures of throwing a large party. Sikka wanted her parents and grandparents present without asking them to cross the world. She wanted relatives entering her room unannounced and the commotion of a family gathering at home. Bal wanted the full force of a Punjabi baraat, with dhol, bhangra and a schedule that would become theoretical as soon as everyone began dancing.
Friends and relatives travelled from North America, Europe and India, with some seeing Punjab for the first time. “There were people from every stage of our lives in one room,” says Sikka. “The people who knew me as a little girl in Punjab, the friends who watched me make a life in America, and the family who supported us throughout our relationship.”
The couple married at Haveli, a Jalandhar venue that opened in 2002 as a contemporary recreation of a traditional Punjabi haveli. Carved timber doors and scalloped arches open onto a series of courtyards, while jaali screens filter sunlight across lime-plastered walls. Painted niches and patterned stone floors gave Sikka and Bal little reason to cover the building in temporary décor. For guests visiting Punjab for the first time, the venue offered an introduction to the architecture the couple had grown up around.
