The Wedding

No matter what you're feelings are about the institution of marriage, weddings themselves are simply the best things on Earth. Everyone gets dressed up, there is tons of good food, you are surrounded by the people you love, and there is an open bar! There is music, there is dancing, and everyone is in a good mood. There is nothing not to like about weddings. If you are coupled up, weddings can be an opportunity to re-kindle the flame of romance. If you are single, weddings are a prime opportunity to find love. If not love, then a lover at least. Perhaps it is not the best experience if you are the one paying for said wedding, weddings are very expensive. But most people consider paying for a wedding an honor and a privilege. It is a celebration of love! And besides, once the wedding starts you'll forget all about the cost. You get lost in the spectacle, just like everyone else. After all, you only get married once, right? Well, in the western world, we are so enamored with weddings that we cannot get married just once per lifetime. We need to do it twice, three times, and sometimes even more than that. We are eternally selfish people. We simply cannot stay in something that does not make us happy anymore! There is nothing more important to us than our own happiness. Nothing I tell you! Why try to cooperate and compromise when you can just cut loose and start all over again? Who needs the struggle? Get a divorce, find someone new to love, and have another wedding! You know I'll be there! (Don't think too much about how expensive divorce is. Just focus on paying for the next wedding! Yay capitalism!)

Manav was at his cousin Munna's wedding. Well, they were not cousins exactly. Munna was the son of one of his dad's friends. Manav just referred to Munna as his cousin because that is what he was told to do. Indian culture is weird like that. His dad and Munna's dad weren't just friends, they were brothers. Which made him and Munna cousins. It didn't matter that there was no blood relation. If you were Indian, you were family. That's just the way it was. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that both families immigrated at the same time. Manav's parents had no real family in the United States when they immigrated from India. All they had were family friends, friends of Manav's father who also immigrated from India. Over time those family friends became family. Even though the families lived in different states they would make it a point to get together as often as they could. They even went on vacations together. To be fair, this was very consistent with the culture in India. The Indian terms used to refer to strangers are the very same terms that are used to refer to family members. In India everyone is family, friends included.

Munna was marrying a white woman, which is very common in the Indian community nowadays. Indians are fully down with the swirl. However, this did present a problem. What kind of wedding should they have? Munna's parents wanted to have a traditional Indian wedding. Kate, Munna's fiance, and her family wanted to have a Christian wedding. Naturally, the two families compromised and decided to have both ceremonies. There would be a church wedding during the day and a Hindu wedding in the afternoon, followed by a reception at night. Now to be fair, this was not a truly traditional Indian wedding. Real Indian weddings take up the whole night. The ceremony itself is 6 hours long. America does not have time for that shit. So for this wedding, the ceremony was cut to 45 minutes.

The night before the wedding there was a "sangeet." A sangeet is an Indian function where the bride's family gets together to sing songs, dance, and celebrate the wedding. It is considered a woman's final party at home before she is married. In India women typically live with their parents till marriage and with their husband's family after marriage. This makes the sangeet a very big deal. Now Munna and Kate had been living together for years now. For all intents and purposes, they were already married. The wedding just made it official. Obviously, Kate's parents did not know what a sangeet was, so Munna's parents threw it for her. Munna was obviously there as well, which would never happen in India. It was a very modern sangeet.

Manav and his cousins were to perform a dance. Two of his cousins had choreographed a dance and had sent it to the group to memorize months ago. No one learned the dance. Obviously, the cousins who choreographed were quite upset but they could do nothing about it. The group had to improvise. They decided to wing it. Manav and his cousins were all good dancers, Bollywood was in their blood. They figured it wouldn't be hard to trick a room full of white people. With 15 minutes of preparation, Manav and his cousins performed their dance. How did it go? Well, it depends on who you ask. Manav thought they killed the performance. They got a standing ovation. Having so many loved ones in the crowd certainly played a factor. A few of his cousins, on the other hand, still refer to it as the 'Louisville debacle.' The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

While he was doing the performance, Manav locked eyes with Kate's maid of honor. She was hot. Very pretty, blonde, average height, curvy, with circular glasses. She was going for the hot nerd look and was absolutely killing it. She was also wearing a saree, a traditional Indian dress. Manav was simply smitten. He had to make a move on her. But how? He was surrounded by family and Manav liked to keep his private life private. He had never told his parents about a single one of his girlfriends. He didn't want them getting their hopes up or asking questions. He could tell that the maid of honor was into him. She had seen him dance, after all, if she wasn't into him now she would never be into him. He owed it to himself to find out. But he couldn't do it in plain sight where his parents could see, he had to wait for the perfect opportunity.

Later that night Munna invited Manav to an after-party in Munna's room. When he got there the room was packed with Munna's groomsmen. There were also a few girls there but the maid of honor was nowhere to be found.

"You want a beer?" asked Munna offering a Bud Light.
"Drinking before the night of your wedding? God is frowning on you," said Manav sarcastically. "What if you're parents found out?"
"My dad could out-drink any one of us, take the beer," said Munna with a smirk. Manav took the beer. He did not like to drink in front of his parents. They did not drink.
"Now that I have your attention, what's the deal with the maid of honor?"
"Who? Ruth? Why are you into her?"
"Duh, she's hot."
"Out of you're league bro, she's a doctor."
"Oh my god, a hot nerd! I'm dying, can she save me?"
"No one can save you."
"Is she single though?"
"Yeah, she's single. No way she gives you the time of day."
"She's seen me dance bro, it's game over."
"I'm going to enjoy watching you crash and burn."
"That's not nice Munna. Here I am praying that you're wedding day goes well and you are wishing bad things on me. It's not nice."
"Yeah because you're a con artist. Go for it though."
"So I have you're blessing?"
"To hit on Ruth?"
"To bless you're wedding with more love!"
"You're a clown." They laughed.

Manav was up early the next day, the church wedding was at 9 am. He tried making eye contact with Ruth during the ceremony but didn't have any success. After the church ceremony, Manav had to change into his Indian clothes. This was the biggest problem for him during the double ceremony. He would have to change his wardrobe three times that day. He asked his dad if he could just wear a suit the whole day. His dad's answer was a stern "No." Changing clothes wouldn't be that big of an issue if he was attending the wedding by himself. But he was not by himself, he was with his family. That meant he had to wait for everyone to get ready before going to an event. He and his dad would get ready in 5 minutes and then had to wait an hour for his mom and sister to get ready.

They put on their Indian clothes and went down to the Indian wedding ceremony. It was located in a huge hall in the very same hotel. The ceremony was decorated beautifully but it was too long. The 45 minutes felt like three hours. Manav and a majority of the attendees were bored, just like in India. When the ceremony was over he was eager to get out of his Indian clothes and back into his suit. On his way out he saw Ruth at the beverage station getting water. This was his time to make a move. He went up to get water too.

"I like you're saree," he said standing next to her.
"Thanks. I liked your dance moves last night," said Ruth as she turned her head to look at him. She was smiling. It was on like Donkey Kong.
"Oh, you're too kind. Save me a dance later?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"Great, see you soon."
"Looking forward to it."

Manav was in there like swimwear. He was buzzing with excitement as he went back to his room. He changed into his second suit quickly but once again had to wait for his family to get ready. While he sat on the couch in the hotel room he tried to come up with a plan. His logistics were not great. He did not have his own room. Maybe she had her own room? Even if she did he couldn't just invite himself over. He also couldn't make an overt move during the reception, his parents would be looking on. Then it came to him. After party! Munna had mentioned that after the reception there was going to be an after-party. All he had to do was get Ruth to the after-party and the rest would take care of itself. He was excited to get to the reception. He yelled at his mom and sister to hurry up. They took another hour.

When his family got to the reception the best man was doing his toast. They were very late. They did their best to get to their table as discreetly as possible. They had missed a majority of the speeches, including Ruth's. The only positive was that they were right on time for dinner. The food was served the second they sat down. It was delicious. Manav was violently hungry. He ate as much as he could. The open bar was in full swing but, once again, Manav did not like drinking in front of his parents. Whenever they were around he was on his best behavior. The dancing began and everyone got on the dance floor. It was a blast! All his loved ones were dancing and he was having a great time. Every now and then he would lock eyes with Ruth and they would smile at each other. So close yet so far.

After about an hour his family and his family friends were all sitting down to eat dessert. He still hadn't danced with Ruth. He saw that she was still dancing. There was just enough cover on the dance floor for him to dance with her without all eyes on them. He made his way to the dance floor.

"May I have this dance?" asked Manav in the middle of the dance floor.
"Yes!" replied Ruth.

And then they danced. Ruth smelled amazing. Now of all the dances, the wedding dance is by far the easiest. You sway from side to side, you turn, you sway from side to side some more, you turn the girl, then you turn yourself too because you're not sexist, and then you go back to moving from side to side. The chemistry was immediate and both Ruth and Manav knew it. Manav wasted no time. He knew he had to act fast.

"So have you heard about the after-party?" asked Manav.
"No. There's an after-party?" replied Ruth.
"Yeah, I think so. Think is somewhere downtown."
"Oh, how fun! No one told me about that."
"Would you want to go? I can let you know once I get the details."
"Sure, that sounds great!"
"Great, I'll talk to you soon."

Manav ended the dance and went to talk to some people who might know about the after-party. He was so excited that he completely forgot to get Ruth's phone number. He spun around and walked straight back to the middle of the dance floor.

"I just realized I don't have your phone number!" he said as he approached Ruth.
"Ha! I was wondering when you were going to realize that," said Ruth with a laugh.

Manav took out his phone and Ruth gave him her number. The two smiled at each other as Manav walked off again. Manav asked around as much as he could for the after-party but there was no clear answer. There was nothing official organized by the bride and groom. The reception was coming to an end. A bunch of the people from the wedding party were going to find a bar downtown to go to. Manav figured that once they had a spot he could reach out to Ruth. He, along with his family, went back to the hotel room. He exchanged contact info with one of the groomsmen. He would be kept in the loop if and when they found a spot. Half an hour later he was sitting with his younger cousins. Still no text from the groomsman. He decided to text Ruth.

'Hey! Still no word on the after party.' - Manav

Ruth replied immediately.

'Hey! Awww man. That's okay, I'm kind of tired from the day anyway.' - Ruth
'Yeah, I get that. Are you here with family?' -Manav
'No. Just here by myself. Why?' - Ruth
'No reason. Just that I'm here with family lol, can't get rid of them!'
'Hahahahaha yup I have the room all to myself
'Lucky! Want to hang out and watch Netflix or something?'
'Sure! I'm in room 406.'
'Be there soon!'

What happened in room 406 that night? Well, it depends on who you ask!