The Great Ganesha

While most people were (wisely) watching the Law and Order marathon on TNT, the RXGeek (who happened to be in town) and I went to an Indian wedding. It was the son of a close family friend and so it was unfortunately unavoidable. It was a fairly ritzy locale in NYC and, if nothing else, provided the promise of free food and booze. So we dressed to the nines and headed over. Well, I should say, the RXGeek was dressed to the nines. I was somewhere near a six, six and a half, at the most.

Cocktails and Appetizers

The Cocktail Hour

We got there during the cocktail hour, headed straight to the bar, and then to the buffet table. We decided to control the binge-eating until dinner and had “only” two helpings of the hors d’oeuvres (hey – I’m a starving grad student, after all). And everything seemed to be going fine. In fact, to my surprise, we were quite enjoying ourselves. There’s something extremely satisfying about the privacy that is afforded to one by being completely anonymous in a heavily crowded room. You also get to peacefully observe the aunties and uncles rushing around greeting each other with loud hellos and over-concocted smiles, each one more primped up than the next. You get to see the “crazy” uncle who never got married and is grossly under-dressed (the latter following from the former, probably), sitting on the corner table, bleary-eyed and nursing his single-malt scotch (“no ice, haan!” – he has a cold, you see). You can watch decades-old rivalries between relatives that, no matter how hard they try to hide it in public, shows up in their understated and cold hellos. Also, you get to eavesdrop on to the occasional “keeping-up-with-the-Sharmas” conversation. For example,

Hema Aunty’s Fridge

Sharmila aunty says (quite proudly), “You know Hema, we just bought a new fridge last week – capacity twenty-five cubic feet.”

And Hema aunty’s witty retort? “We also just bought a fridge. Capacity was thirty cubic feet. And it even has a bottom freezer. They’re more efficient, you know.”

Game, set and match to Hema aunty!

Dinnertime
Soon it was time to head over to the dining hall. After some intense maneuvering and some number theory to locate our table, we found ourselves seated between a boring girl who spoke in staccato and mostly with herself, and some desi guy married to an American – which seemed to be his greatest achievement thus far. At least, he wouldn’t stop talking about it. So, patiently making small-talk (well, at least with the Indian guy, about his wife) we awaited the first course.

A Small, Furry Animal

Everything seemed to be going as expected until the MC came on. This really hip black guy, he began strutting furiously round and round the dance floor trying to rile the crowd out of their drunken stupor and pre-prandial lethargy by shouting “Come on people! Let’s see some hands!” and “DJ Asheesh – pump up the bass!”. And boy, did DJ Ashish pump up that bass. The beat went from low-volume, innocuous Air India-style elevator muzak, to sounding like a small, furry animal getting caught in the rotating turbines of a jet engine and being repeatedly thumped onto the side of the plane. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the DJ then started introducing three generations of the couple’s family (with siblings, mind you) one by one, after which each ambled across the dance floor. And he would not progess until there was adequate applause (“Come on people! You can do better than that!”). I phased out of half of it, probably passed out because of my hunger, but I guess I regained consciousness when he, at long last, introduced the newly married couple by saying, “And, in their first-ever public appearance as a married couple! Heeeeeere’s…” as if it was Madonna and her newly-found Kabbalah priest.

All right, I thought to myself, finally we get to eat. And, the waiters and waitresses (who, incidentally, were better dressed than me, and definitely better dressed than crazy uncle) even came out to take our “order”. We got to choose from the lobster souffle or the corn souffle as appetizers and a bunch of other stuff as entrees. It suffices to say that the entrees and desserts were fancy, hard-to-spell Western food with accents and tildes from a prix fixe menu without the prix, i.e., free. Alas, however, the meal was not to be. Well, not right then anyhow, because the bride’s father stood up, DJ Ashish pumped down the bass, and the MC introduced him, reading his name off a small chit, and grossly mispronouncing it. And then there was a long, elaborate speech punctuated with bad jokes and with thank-yous to both, Hema and Sharmila aunties. Who knows what violence would have ensued if one had been thanked and not the other? And if you think that was bad, the highlight of the evening was yet to come. After the speech, the MC came back on, DJ Ashish had pumped up the bass again (think furry animal plus jet turbine again) and the wedding couple came on for the first dance.

The Happy Couple Dance

The Chicken Dance

And this was where the proverbial furry animal hit the side of the plane and exploded. This was no ordinary dance. It was an elaborately rehearsed, bollywood-style, professionally choreographed dance number. At least, that’s what I think they intended it to be. Just picture two brown people, one tall and completely uncoordinated and the other, short, chubby and trying to keep up. Both sweating profusely on the dance floor under bright spotlights. These were by no stretch of the imagination bollywood stars – just two NYC lawyers flapping their arms about, thrusting their pelvises at each other and doing what I think was the tango, but it could also very well have been the chicken dance. The groom was hopeless. I mean, if dance is poetry of the body, then he was right about at the level of Humpty Dumpty. Stiff, awkward and extremely conscious, this guy was a dance instructor’s nightmare. The girl was marginally better, a little fluid, but shaking that girth was no small feat. And required pretty large and thumping feet, to boot. And I thought the speech was bad. I’d take a hundred speeches over that public display of ridiculosity. Why anyone would want to subject themselves and, more importantly, others to that is well beyond my comprehension. It got worse when the MC called ordered everyone on to the dance floor to join the ‘happy’ couple, who seemed far from happy right then. Suddenly, there was a throng raising the roof in a circle around the groom. Those who weren’t dancing were pushing and shoving everyone around while risking punches and kicks from the violently gyrating crowd simply to try and catch a glimpse of the groom and his clunky Govinda moves. For some reason, the word “cattle” crossed my mind several times at that point. And, after all of this, when things had finally settled down a little, the guy with the American wife proudly proclaimed to me,

“We also danced at our wedding, you know. But my wife did a solo bollywood number during our dance sequence. It lasted for fifteen minutes! Pretty cool, huh?”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m a cynic and an atheist.

Exit Strategy
Finally, after tolerating crazy uncle, Sharmila aunty, staccato-girl, speechifying father, desi-guy-with-American-wife and (*groan*) the Mithun-Silk Smita dance number, the first course was served. It was a lobster souffle all right, but was about the size of a mini-muffin and was fifty percent air. I inhaled it. After which point, the MC decided to call everyone on to the dance floor AGAIN! I mean, it’s bad enough they make us dance before eating, but who the hell dances between courses?

After almost an hour of watching the herds flock to the dance floor to make asses of themselves, we used sophisticated statistical techniques to project that, at the current rate of serving, we would get dessert at approximately five in the morning. That was the breaking point. We exited the ritzy locale ASAP, took a $5 cab ride to a friend’s place and filled up on some delicious Parsi chicken and Bengali cabbage. And, most importantly, some single malt scotch. A lot of it. Now, THAT’S how you survive that fiasco!

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