The noise levels are impressive.
Staying in the Indian capital of Delhi a few weeks ago on holiday, I had a crash course in the breadth, importance and showmanship of Indian weddings.
At several hotels where I stayed, at restaurants where I ate and along the road my bus traveled, everywhere there were preparations for someone’s nuptials.
Large tents, impressive amounts of billowing fabric, uncountable numbers of folded chairs, magnificent buffets, spectacular clothing and all other manner of finery took up every inch of space on hotel lawns.
Black kites — large raptors that scavenge for their diet — sat atop trees and perused the scene.
Hoteliers everywhere in the world would look on enviously, for India is the land of the $100 million wedding.
At one hotel, we politely asked what time the festivities would continue until, and we were told the party would end at 10:30 p.m., and we learned this was the truth, even though the messenger was skirting around the real issue.
There is the definite notion that guests are not to be told anything alarming or negative, a collective idea that is not unique to India.
Yes, that particular wedding finished at 10:30, but the information relayed to us did not include the fact that as soon as the party was over the disco-nightclub along side the lawn was to erupt into bass-drum cacophony.
I usually sleep well. The event was not too off-putting, and one should expect a little activity in the capital of the world’s most-populous country.
When it comes to a wedding that costs $100 million, I imagine the cries of opposition wilt to the very background, even if hoteliers are quick to tell you the hotel’s very being is a comfortable bed, a good shower and an excellent night’s sleep.
Apparently, that wedding was held in 2018 in Mumbai, but I was told plans were being made to beat that.
How do you upstage a $100 million wedding? $110 million sounds an odd figure, so why not round it up to $120 million or $125 million?
In fairness, in today’s money, it has been said that the wedding between the now King Charles III to the late Princess Diana Spencer cost in that ballpark, and I do not remember too much criticism of that event.
In Delhi, our two friends in our group of four asked to move rooms, and the staff duly obliged them. They woke up the next morning a little groggy, but it is hard to feel sleepy in this city of constant movement and sound.
We listened to a band named the Master Band taking part in a Jain religious procession blast drum and horn-section music amid colorful crowds marching along one of the city’s busier streets. The band has a website, and, yes, it can be hired for weddings.
We ate fiery chili snacks. We swerved around cows and crowds jerkily progressing down the road in tuk-tuks. We watched craftswomen cut shapes into paper mounted on card and within minutes replicate India’s most famous ancient monuments.
And we had a contest to concoct the best scent out of herbal elixirs and perfumes. Maybe as the judge of the contest was a man, my more masculine scent of sandalwood and bosk — with two touches of what might be more feminine additions — won. I named it “Mists of Malgudi” after the fictional town created by the very fine Indian novelist R.K. Narayan, and this name went down a treat with the employees of the scent shop who all knew his work.
We were having a whale of a time, and with all five senses fully in play, it was impossible to be churlish over two people celebrating what supposedly will be the best day of their lives along with thousands of their friends and invitees.
In India, bring on the noise.
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