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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Singh is King

A mid-day wedding: a Sardar's.

Venue: A banquet hall located almost at the other end of the city.

Date: A bright, sunny Sunday.

I chose to go with the office crowd, because the groom is a colleague unknown to my family. And a pack of girls pooling in is actually fun, giggling and gossipping. The distance did not seem to be a problem at all. Inside the venue, the number of guests tends to startle you, but we could locate a familiar face at the far end of the hall. He was looking quite nice, dressed in white and a red turban.. our young Sardar was looking like a prince, holding a sword. "Its real", he told me later.

Within minutes of our arrival, the fellow was carted off by the relatives to the Gurudwara for the "actual" wedding, leaving us at the mercy of the DJ. I stayed away from the dance floor a bit, sipping a refreshing glass of juice, watching the people around. There were people from all age groups. Most dont bother to dress up much... sober, simple, presentable but they could be just anywhere. I owe apologies to the men for not noticing them much. All Sardar men appear alike in a crowd, with their turbans, tall(ish) structures and facial hair. Its only three breeds: Elderly, Middle Aged and Young Sardars. And the women, just in case they choose to dress up, they surely know how to go overboard! And its mostly Salwar-kameez.... they would look at me questioningly, "Saree?" and answer themselves, "Of course, you are not a Sardarni".

But its the DJ who stole the show. He had perhaps taken it upon himself to underline the fact that it was a Sardar wedding. One song would be a Bollywood dance number, followed by a couple of completely unheard of Punjabi songs and then would come, "Singh is King", a song extremely popular among Sardars just because of these three words. And even the children enjoy it... their heads would start nodding everytime the speakers announce "Singh is King"...