(Memoir)

The year 2024 was a bit hectic for us. In late February, we took an eighteen-day cruise from Santiago, Chile, to Buenos Aires, Argentina. No sooner had we returned than we received a message from India that Bharati’s niece Shibani was engaged, and the wedding was set to be in June. When we were in India five years ago, Bharati had promised Shibani that she would attend her wedding when it was planned.

After some debate, we decided that we were going to India. We did not have much time to plan. Our passports were expiring in six months. They need to be valid for six months after your last day of stay abroad. To expedite the renewal, we visited a local county library with a unit to process passport applications. We were told that the normal time for renewal was eight to ten weeks. We had barely eight weeks before our departure. We decided to try our luck and applied. In case of delay, we could pay extra and expedite the process. We were lucky. We received our passports in two weeks. It was a good start.

The wedding was going to be a five-day event. Starting with Sangeet (an evening of music performances by family and friends), Mehendi (henna application), Laksmi Pooja (praying the goddess Laxmi), the wedding, and a reception on the fifth day. Indian weddings are a large affair attended by many people. It is customary to invite your extended families, neighbors, office coworkers, etc. We were told that for Shibani’s wedding reception about six hundred people were invited.

“Who is going to pay for this?” Asked my friends in America.
“The bride’s parents of course,” I replied.

In Western countries, a wedding reception is a sit-down affair with assigned seating. Not so in India as we were to find out.

The reception following Shibani’s wedding took place in a large wedding hall. It was Sunday, June 30th. We were told that we could stop by between 7:00 pm to 10:30 pm. As we had been meeting our relatives every day for the past four days we decided to relax a bit and go to the event around 7:30 pm. By car, it was a half hour away. We sauntered down to our hotel lobby and requested the person at the reception desk to call us an Uber. He asked us to sit in the lounge to wait for the car to arrive.

We waited and waited but there was no car. The receptionist checked again.
“I am sorry, Sir,” he said. “Nothing is available.”
“What’s going on?” I enquired.

As it happened it was the day when hundreds of devotees had descended on the city of Pune. They were on their way to the holy city of Alandi on foot. The Alandi town is popular as a place of pilgrimage and for being the resting place of the 13th-century saint Sant Dnyaneshwar. All streets in the neighborhood of our hotel were blocked. No vehicle was allowed to come in or go out of the neighborhood.

We called our hosts and informed them of our predicament. They tried to send someone to pick us up, but the police blocked them from approaching our hotel. The hotel receptionist recommended that we wait.

“It will clear up in a couple of hours,” he said.

We had no alternative. It was 10.00 pm and it didn’t look like we would be able to get a car. We decided to make the best of the evening. Going to the reception was out of the question. We walked up to the hotel restaurant on the second floor. Ordered dinner, and had a martini and appetizers. We sent a photo of us with the drink and sent it to the host with our congratulations.

As we were waiting for our main course to be served we received a call from Shibani’s brother.

“Go down to the lobby,” he said. “There is someone with a car to bring you here.”
We tried to convince him that it was already past 10:30 when the event was to close and we were in the middle of our dinner. He would not listen.

“Leave everything,” he said. “We need both of you here to take photos with the newlyweds.”

When we arrived at the reception hall it was empty except for close relatives. The newlywed couple was sitting on a decorated sofa on the stage. They were still greeting people. The large hall looked like a movie theater. The chairs had white slipcovers. I sat with some of our men relatives as Bharati went to talk with ladies.

“How was the reception?” I asked.

“It was great,” he said. “You should go down to have dinner. There are multiple food stations; soup, pasta, Indian, Chinese, deserts.”

I told him what had happened to us. How we were held up due to the Yatra. He said many people came. They probably lived in the vicinity of the venue and did not face our problem.

“How many were able to come?” I asked.

“Over eight hundred,” he said, nonchalantly, as if it was not a big deal.

I could visualize the hall full of so many people lined up to go up the stage and have their photos taken with the couple. I admired Shibani and her new husband for having the stamina to greet and have a few words with everyone and pose for the photos.

Our turn for the photo session came around 11:30 p.m. We went down to the basement for our dinner at the stroke of midnight.

It was an unforgettable experience.