Wedding

On Tuesday night I got back to my hotel, exhausted after the Garba social event. I was unable to sleep, however, because this was happening right outside my room:



Yes, it was an Indian wedding, between two large business families. I discovered that the groom's business was ship-wrecking and the bride's business was iron smelting. The "happy couple" are the ones standing in the middle. The ones standing still. Wishing it would all just finish.

On that note, in India almost all weddings are arranged and it's completely normal. In fact, either you are single or you're married. There's no concept of a 'girlfriend'. Sex before marriage is forbidden. People in Mumbai are currently shocked because the regional government have acknowledged something called a "live-in relationship". Gay relationships are also forbidden.

The following day, the wedding was still in full-effect. I invited myself over to the festivities and tried to make friends. People looked at me with the expression "Who the hell invited the white guy?" But as soon as I spoke to people, to find out who's wedding it was, the ice broke and they all seemed to be quite chatty.

I helped myself to gourmet Gujarati cuisine from the buffet and went to sit down and watch Aditya Narayan, the Indian pop-star who had been hired to perform at the wedding. At this point a young man came over and asked me if I remembered him.

"Er... ye... n...."
"I'm the DJ from the Garba last night. DJ Jana."

I got talking to him and agreed to go and visit him in Ahmedabad sometime to compare deep underground house music with the Gujarati, Punjabi and Bollywood music he was playing previously. His name is Janardan. You'll hear more about him later.