Day 3 - Sangeet in the evening

We came to the mandap and noticed that everyone was patiently waiting for something to happen. I learnt that my cousin, Andy, who was supposed to conduct the Sangeet was stuck in the notorious Bangalore traffic. As most of us had never even seen a sangeet ( except for the ones that come in movies), we're quite unsure about the course of action. In the meantime, the crowd was getting restless and we quickly sent my cousin, Shreya, to sing a invocation prayer. Then, what ? My cousin, Shilpa ( yes we share the same name; she is referred to as local shilpa and I am US shilpa), suggested that we call on volunteers to sing and kill time.

A lady in front put her hand up at once; she then took out a sheet of paper from her purse. Huh...do people move around with lyrics ? She took the mike and started singing. I stood stunned when I heard her. Everyone around her were speechless. My friends and cousins stood dumbstruck. Had the character Cacofonix become a reality ? Her singing was unbearable. The kind that would make you want to burrow a hole through the ground and escape. I panicked and wanted to snatch the mike from her before everyone ran away. We could not do it as it would not look nice and had to bear the torture. Watching this scene on dvd is very funny; I can almost see the people around her cringe with each note. LOL.

Then Prasanna, suggested Antakshiri. We quickly made two teams; boys and girls. The girls team was full and there were hardly any folks in the boys team. I had to convince most of my uncles and others to join them. In the end, it was total fun. We all kept singing to our hearts content. Vikram kept singing many shaadi songs and got a lot of crowd support. Still, no sign of Andy.

Then, we decided to boogie. I had burnt a cd with fast hindi songs. All the girls started dancing. Vikram, his brother Vinayak and my cousin Karthik were the only boys on the dancefloor. Vikram's grandparents joined in between for kajre re and looked very cute. My parents also shook a leg and many aunts joined too. It was a blast. Andy, Anu and my cousin Shilpa took a lead and gave us ideas for steps. Other cousins who joined us were the other Anu, Shreya, Sushma, Poornima, Samyukta, Kritika, Andy, Ria, Kaveri, Asha and a whole bunch of small kids. This went on for a while till the elders decided it was time for dinner. We then took a few pictures.

The audience (mostly relatives) basically looked on. I wish dancing becomes a part of South Indian weddings. Its the apt thing to do in such a joyous occasion.

A few of my relatives were worried that I would be tired after so much of dancing and look exhausted the next day for the wedding. That din't happen ofcourse; this is where all the late-night clubbing helps. :-) I looked fresh and happy the next day.