Chapter 58: From India, with Love.

A week in India for Tanmaye's wedding. Highlights include sick outfits, Delhi Belly, five days of fun.

This is a quite-long, ~9,000 word travel blog. You may need to click the “keep reading” at the bottom to see the full message. Thanks!

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“How much do you want to bet?”

“What?”

This 60-year-old Indian man stares at me, takes another hit of his cigarette, then repeats himself. “I arm wrestle your friend. Gamble on it. How much are you going to bet?”

I look in my wallet and see ~$120 and change.

I glance at this Indian dude. He definitely has old man strength, and, at 12:42 AM, there’s a healthy dose of nicotine and whiskey flowing through his veins. I glance at Ben. There’s more than a healthy dose of tequila flowing through his veins; we’ve been drinking non-stop for five days.

“$120, that’s all the cash I have.”

“$20?”

“No. One HUNDRED and twenty dollars.”

“How many rupees is that?”

“I don’t know, like 13,000?”

The Indian man grabs his wallet and yells “THIRTEEN THOUSAND RUPEES” and throws it on the table.“I guess I’m betting $120 on an arm wrestling match,” I think to myself. I throw my cash down too.

Day five of an Indian wedding, and I’m watching one of my best friends arm wrestle another one of my best friends’ uncles, with a dozen ~30-year-old American dudes betting against a dozen ~60-year-old Indian dudes on the outcome.

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I had never, before last week, been to India. I was supposed to go to India during spring break a couple of years ago, but the start date of my last job coincided with our spring break, so my team offsite took priority. Last week, however, I got another chance when one of my best friends, Tanmaye and his girlfriend Quinn, got engaged. He’s Indian, and they were hosting the wedding in India, and I received an invite to said wedding, so I was finally able to take my first trip to the subcontinent. This was not one of those “take a month and see a new country” trips. I’m employed, plus the holidays were coming up, so it was much more of a “six days on the other side of the world” trips, with the wedding itself being a five-day celebration. And the whole thing was a blast. So fun, in fact, that it deserved a standalone travel blog.

So let's get into it.

Most weddings I have been to consist of the following order:

The wedding party arrives on Friday, and you spend the afternoon riffing with the groomsmen who you attended the bachelor party with a few weeks’ prior. You have the rehearsal and welcome dinner, catch some sleep, wake up Saturday, throw on your suit, take lots of pictures, head to the venue, sit through a pleasant, ~hour-long ceremony, head to dinner, listen to anywhere from 2-4 speeches of varying quality, some of which are genuinely heartfelt, but most of which are compilations of unnecessarily-forced inside jokes (most inside jokes are not great wedding speech fodder, FYI), tear up the dance floor, and then, if you’re feeling crazy, hit the town after, before smoking a cigarette at 3 AM and calling it a night. 36 hours of fun, then back to reality.

The itinerary of this wedding was, well, a bit different.

Take a Monday evening flight from New York to New Delhi, land Tuesday night. Wednesday night brings a welcome party in New Delhi. Thursday: Welcome lunch in New Delhi. Friday AM: fly to Jodhpur. Welcome lunch at the Umaid Bhawan Palace. That night? Sangeet party at Fort Mehrangarh with an after party that follows. Saturday: Haldi at the Umaid Bhawan Palace, Baraat that afternoon, wedding in the courtyard that evening, after party inside at 2 AM, and we run it back on Sunday with a Bahu Swagat the following afternoon before a Christian wedding that evening at the palace. Oh, and, yes, one more after party because why not? An aggressive week.

After spending Monday hurriedly washing my clothes and packing, I ubered to JFK for our 14 hour flight to Delhi. I am, normally, a carry-on-only maximalist. For this? I had to make an exception. I needed a suit. No, two suits. Because I don’t want to wear the same suit twice. And what shoes do I wear? Well, I don’t know. Let’s pack cowboy boots. And oxfords. Running shoes, but also some dressier sneakers, too. Loafers, because they look cleaner with Indian fits, right? Dress shirts. Linen shirts. A tie or two. A jacket, sweater, and hoodie, and anything else you might need for Christmas since you’re headed straight from India to Georgia for Christmas.

So, yes, I had to check a bag.

Head to the airport. JFK is New York’s disgrace compared to La Guardia. Get to the gate. Run into a couple of Israeli founders I met in Tel Aviv in May. Confusedly ask them, “Headed to India..?” No, of course not. They’re headed to San Francisco, and had stopped through New York on the way. Obviously.

Run into a couple of friends at the gate: Ben, a day one from business school referenced in the opening paragraph, Landon, and Ben’s new girlfriend, Claudia. Initial read: we’re Claudia fans. She also selflessly provided me with some performance enhancing sleeping medicine. I’m not a great sleeper on red eyes, but if I didn’t catch eight hours on this 14 hour monstrosity, I knew I was cooked. Grab a glass of wine from the bar by the terminal. It tastes like stale grape juice, but it serves its purpose. Board the flight; seat 24J. I really thought I had done something smart by landing the exit row, but, actually, I played myself! Because this was a large, long-haul plane, there are three seat sections per row in economy (cattle class) where I was sitting. I was in the section to the right. A fun trick about the front row of economy on long-haul flights: families can book the entire middle section because the wall in front of those seats doubles as a support for bassinets to put babies in. Directly to my left, I find a family of four: two parents who either lacked the ability or desire to exercise any level of authority over their 2- and 4-year-old children. Dad is holding the younger kid who is competing with the jet engine to see who can maintain 100 decibels the longest. Mom is staring at the older kid: she keeps trying to eat the safety manual.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!”

I hear someone giggling behind me as my seat gets kicked. I turn around. A three-year-old is slumped in her seat kicking her feet against the seatback table. Her mom mouths, “Sorry!” to me. I don’t think it’s a Herculean effort to stop your kid from taking out their ADHD on the back of some stranger’s seat, but here we are. I take a sleeping pill. “Please work.”

Engine accelerates. Flight takes off. I close my eyes. Hear a gasp. Open my eyes. The four year old to my left projectile vomited all over the wall in front of their seat, and now they’re crying. It smells horrible. Awesome, I’m seated in the crossfire of the worst toddlers on the planet.

A few minutes later, before the sleeping pill kicks in but after the fasten seatbelt sign comes off, I head back to row 33 where Ben and Claudia are, so I can take a brief break from the scent of partially digested baby peas and tell my friends about my great fortune. Ben is seated in the aisle, Claudia in the middle. To her right, I see a 12-year-old kid, iPad out, completely barefoot with his right leg crossed over his left, bottom of his foot a few inches from Claudia, giving himself a toe massage. “Incredible, we all won the flight lottery.”

I consider bribing the kid to switch seats with me and sit in kiddie crossfire. I restrain myself and head back to my seat. Sleeping pill is kicking in. Goodnight, world.

I shoot awake, sweating. Four hours until landing; that sleeping pill worked wonders. It also amplified my dreams: seconds earlier, I dreamt we had just flown into one of the Himalayas. I’m pretty sure the kid kicking my seat caused my dream realm to simulate a plane crash. Whatever, we’re nearly there.

Land in New Delhi. First thought, it’s foggy. Check the weather app. Air quality is so bad that the radar just shows dark red. Apparently Delhi in winter time has the worst air pollution on planet earth. Reconvene with Ben, Landon, and Claudia. The foot kid apparently passed out for the entirety of the flight. Never put his socks back on.

We receive a Whatsapp message from the wedding coordinator telling us to head outside and look for a sign saying, “Tanmaye and Quinn wedding.” We grab our bags, head outside, and are greeted by drivers with said signs. They have a list of names. We’re on it. I’m in a different hotel from the others, the Leela, so I walk to a cab with one of the drivers. Everyone in the parking lot is smoking cigarettes, which doesn’t bug me, because the entire biome feels like a cigarette. We get in a car, exit the airport, head down the highway. The roadways had no lanes, so the vehicles, like osmosis, quickly filled any loose space that might help them reach their final destination even one millisecond faster. We weave left, right, accelerate past bicycles with carriages attached to the back, people appearing out of nowhere to cross the highway on foot, and other taxi drivers dodging pedestrians. Somehow, no one hits anyone. Everyone navigating Indian roadways is operating in some sort of collective flow state. It’s impressive. I get to the hotel, and the guards open the hood and the trunk. I realize a few days later that this is routine for all taxis entering nice hotels. Every car gets searched. We pull up to the hotel. The driver gets out, gives me a slight bow. A hotel attendant walks up, gives me a slight bow. Grabs my bags. I walk through a metal detector and enter the hotel. The clerk gives me a slight bow, escorts me to the front desk. The reception gives me a slight bow, checks me in. I get my room key and head upstairs. There’s a knock on my door. The bag guy gives me a slight bow, drops off my bags.

I hit the gym to work up a sweat after sitting for 16 hours, then shower to wash off the gym sweat before hitting the bar for a bite to eat. I grab a beer and some chicken wings before hopping on a work call with a dude in Thailand. He was chill.

At this point, it’s around 1 AM, and I read for a bit before calling it a night.

You can kind of see the smog at my hotel.

In the morning, I once again hit the gym before testing out the hotel breakfast. The Leela breakfast was phenomenal. Waffles, omelettes, yogurt, granola, and a random assortment of spicy Indian breakfast foods were waiting for me, plus a cappuccino. I consume all of it, then head to the Taj hotel to meet up with my boys Brody and Lawrence. The three of us will be roommates for the final three nights of the trip, and we need to get fresh fits for the Indian festivities. Namely: kurtas (shirt/gowns), sherwanis (formal coats), and jackets/vests. I grab a coffee at their hotel, Brody says, “I know a place,” and we hop in a $2 Uber.

Traffic was, once again, a free-for-all. We drove past a park with hundreds of people laying in the grass, but it wasn’t a “hot girl in LA laying out” kind of laying in the grass as much as a “I was walking and just decided to cease movement in this particular spot” kind of laying in the grass. Lots of dogs all over the place. All sorts of bicycle-like vehicles with anywhere from 1-4 people on them.

Brody takes us to what must be the nicest shopping area in New Delhi. We enter this boujee, white-washed complex with a Ralph Lauren store near the entrance and walk into a traditional Indian clothing store. The manager of the store, who was quite metrosexual (he would have fit right in in Brooklyn), immediately starts taking kurtas off the hangers for us to try on.

None of them fit.

He assured us that the could adjust the kurtas and have them delivered the next day to our hotels before our flights.

Maybe.

These clothes were very, very nice, and they absolutely did not fit. Except one kurta, which I quite liked, that fit quite well. I took it to the counter. He showed me the price. I checked the exchange rate: “$800.”

“No way,” I thought to myself. I glanced at Brody and Lawrence. They shook their heads. I said, “Don’t think I’m going to be able to swing this for something I need to wear once.”

We leave.

Next we head head downtown, to Khan Market, which is basically a mix of Canal Street and Soho in New York. A bunch of narrow winding alley ways that are simultaneously dirty yet filled with interesting retail stores + bars and restaurants. Smog is still, pretty much, everywhere, so whenever you’re outside it’s like walking through a smoking lounge. Slight burn in your lungs.

We ran into Jacob, one of Tanmaye’s friends from Northwestern, and Laura, his wife / one of Quinn’s friends in one of the 27 clothing stores in this Delhian alley. Jacob was already fitted in Indian apparel. We weren’t huge fans of store number one, so we kept walking until we found a tailor: B. Rai Son’s. This was the right store.

Apparently, half of our crew had already been to this same spot, and we were all looking for the same thing: a sherwani. It was a must-have item for the Indian wedding in a few days, and, like a good suit, we needed to get them tailored. The boys at B Rai Son’s pulled out some fabrics for us to choose from (I chose a navy blue base with lighter blue patterns), took our measurements, then bartered with us until we agreed to a price. I think I was ~$500 all-in for the sherwani, some tailored pants, and a nice yellow kurta. Then we headed to a more casual store for kurtas, jackets, and scarves. I copped a red and a navy kurta, as well as a red/black scarf.

I headed back to my hotel to shower and change, then I grabbed a cab to the welcome party on the outskirts of New Delhi. Dress attire for night one was western suits, so I threw on a navy suit and tried my best not to fall asleep in the cab. 10 hour time change isn’t for the weak. Looking out the window, it felt like the opening scene to a B-list thriller film: thick fog with 8 feet of visibility, strangers appearing out of nowhere walking across the street, cars weaving all over the road. My driver was chill. We exchanged a total of 9 words.

After 45 minutes, I arrived at the “welcome dinner,” which was more grandiose than most weddings I’ve attended. Red carpet rolled out at the entrance with servers waiting with glasses of champagne, then I walked down the hallway into a massive, circular room with a round bar in the center, a stage at the front, and an outdoor dining area to the left with everything from a sit-down omakase station, to a massive grill covered with an assortment of meats, to a dessert bar that would have made Willy Wonka jealous.

This was also my first time seeing the rest of my crew attending the wedding. There were ~20 or so of us from Columbia in town, with about ~10, specifically, of my closer guy friends. Among those 10, the split of single vs. relationship guys was approximately 50/50, which is the ideal split of relationship status at a wedding. Having been on both sides of that equation at different points in my life, the relationship guys are guaranteed to have a good time (assuming, of course, that the party is good), while the single guys tend to experience more volatility somewhat dependent on their successes at both identifying, and wooing, any of the single girls in attendance. Their efforts, of course, serve the broader entertainment of everyone in the friend group. This is the underlying side plot of any wedding, particularly a destination wedding. Who finds love that wasn’t predestined when the invites were sent out?

At this particular wedding, I was one of the single guys.

I grab a drink (gin and tonic?) and start making the rounds saying my hello’s to everyone, and, as the last paragraph would suggest, keeping an eye out for anyone who might fall into the “single girls in attendance” category. My crew had flown in from all over the place: the majority live in New York, but we had friends from Guatemala, Argentina, and France as well. Tanmaye’s friends were largely split between graduate school (Columbia) and undergrad (Northwestern).

I walk over to say what’s up to some of the Northwestern guys, when I recognize one girl from Raya. “Traveling to New Delhi” was a telltale sign of someone else at the same wedding. I said hello. I made very little traction with that conversation.

Then the bride and groom arrive, and they look stunning, which was, as it should be, the common theme of the weekend. Tanmaye, to his credit, really pulled himself together for his wedding week, Quinn looked like a princess. We all say hey to them, and I chat with his dad and uncle for a few minutes. I had met them once, at our graduation party a year and a half ago. Tanmaye’s dad is a 6’ 5 giant of a man with an incredibly dry sense of humor, and his uncle Bobby is exactly the type of Indian uncle you would want at your 5 day wedding extravaganza: life of the party perpetually tearing up the dance floor.

Sebo, Tanmaye’s dad, Ben

Dinner time; I grab a table with Marcos, Nana, Pierce, Maite, Guille, Rafa, Toni, Clem, Lucas, and Brody(more Columbia friends). Then time for dessert. I turn to walk over the dessert area, where I see Sebo and Antonio chatting with a group of girls near the espresso bar. Zero time wasted for the Latin folks. DJ comes on, back to the dance floor.

Again, I would like to highlight that this was a welcome dinner, but it was more extravagant than most weddings I had attended. Two hours later, my whole crew was dancing on stage to Indo-English jams, and two hours after that, Lawrence, Brody, and I finally made our way outside to grab cabs home. 3:52 AM.

At this point, our visibility had declined from 8 feet to 4, and the ride home felt more like a fever dream than reality. I genuinely have no idea how these drivers can navigate New Delhi smog like this; it’s like they have a 6^th sense.

Back in the hotel, I pass out at 4:30, but not before setting my alarm for 10:45; we have lunch at 12:30.

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I grimace and roll over to grab my phone.

“5:37.”

“Did I only sleep an hour?” I think to myself.

I open my phone. Four missed calls. Brody: “Yo where are you?”

Turns out it was 5:37 PM. I had missed an entire day, and it was already dark again. So much for adjusting my sleep schedule. I roll out of bed, throw on some shorts, and hit the gym, before showering and heading to the hotel restaurant. At this point, I resigned myself to staying up til ~midnight then trying to catch 6-7 hours of sleep before our flight to Jodhpur in the morning.

My mistake, at dinner, was ordering a lamb burger. I like lamb. It’s typically a delectable meat, particularly in burger form. At least at Israeli restaurants. But, in hindsight, I think this specific burger was undercooked. I was, going into this trip, incredibly wary of “Delhi belly.” Don’t, under any circumstances, drink the tap water. I rinsed my toothbrush with water bottles. There was no chance I was going to risk a stomach bug in India. And yet, I got sick anyway.

That evening, after a couple of work calls, I was unwinding for bed, when I started to feel awful. Or, like, “pre-awful.” That feeling where you know you’ll probably throw up in like 2 hours but you haven’t yet. I spend the next 90 minutes on and off the toilet, before getting back in bed for ~30 minutes, then running to the shower and projectile vomiting everywhere for another 30 minutes.

Lamb.

Disgusted both in myself and the murder scene around my feet, I rinse out the shower, take a shower myself, brush my teeth, throw away that tooth brush, and look at my phone again.

3 AM.

“Great,” I thought to myself. My alarm was set for 7 AM.

I try to go to sleep, but at this point, there was no chance I was falling asleep. Waking up at 5:37 PM makes it pretty difficult to fall asleep just 10 hours later. So, at 5:30, I made the only reasonable decision to make after blowing up your sleep schedule then puking your guts out for 90 minutes: practice the following evening’s dance routine.

One of the funnier parts of this wedding was that all of the Columbia and Northwestern boys had to perform a 20-something-man synchronized dance routine Friday night at the Sangeet. You may have seen one of the classic viral videos on TikTok of a bunch of American dudes crushing a synchronized dance routine to an Indian beat. That was us. We had, hilariously, practiced it twice over Zoom, but the results were mixed. I myself am not a particularly natural dancer. I’m good at a few things, and fine at many things, but serviceable at best on a dance floor. And I didn’t at all have this one memorized. So, I went back to the bathroom, put my laptop on the sink, and spend the next hour going through the dance routine in front of the mirror, shirtless and sweating, before showering again and heading to the airport.

The wedding coordinator communicated with all of us via Whatsapp, so I got a message saying my ride would be there at 7 AM. I thought I was running late when I walked out of the hotel at 7:17. I arrived at the airport at 7:43. First one there for our 10:30 AM flight.

Navigating the intricacies of flying domestic in India with an overweight bag on no sleep is a bottom-3 life experience. I had to wait in line to enter the airport as they checked my passport and ticket. Fine. Then I get inside. I went to print my boarding pass so I could go through the self-bag drop. Couldn’t print boarding pass because we were a group reservation. Fine. I get in line. 10 minutes go by. 20. 30. We’ve progressed, maybe, 12 people total in the line. It feels like each time a new traveler reaches Indigo’s desk, it’s the worker’s first time checking someone into a flight. I’m nearing the front of the line, and the rest of my party begins to arrive. Landon says “I think we have a dedicated check-in desk.” I get out of line.

This was a mistake.

The critical mass of our party is now here, and Tanmaye talks to an airline worker off to the side. We have our own check-in desk. Good. They have no idea how to check us in. Bad. No one gets checked in for 30 minutes. It’s now 9:45 AM. Our flight leaves at 10:30 AM. No one is checked in. No one has gone through security. I haven’t slept since 5:30 PM the previous day and feel as though I lost half of my body weight via oral expulsion around 3 AM. Not great!

I get back in line with Antonio, Lawrence, Ben, and Claudia. Borderline delirious. The issue, I now realize, is that it takes approximately 8 minutes to process a payment for an overweight bag, and the weight limit for a bag is quite light: 15 kgs. So, naturally, most suitcases getting checked come in over that weight. One person goes up. Bag overweight. 10 minute check-in. Maybe longer. We saw some folks from our party stand at the desk for 30+ minutes before checking in. Nightmare fuel.

45 minutes later, I finally get my boarding pass. It’s 10:42. Our flight was scheduled to leave 7 minutes ago. Luckily, we were 95% of the seats on this flight, so they pushed back takeoff instead. I grab some snacks and make my way to the gate. 12:35 PM, we finally take off. My snacks suck. I eat them anyway. At 1:42 PM, we land in Jodhpur.

Jodhpur was refreshing, quite literally, because it didn’t suffer from the same smog overhang as New Delhi. A smaller city, it was best-known for the Umaid Bhawan Palace and Fort Mehrangarh, which we would soon party at for the next three evenings. When the flight landed, we left our bags with the transportation staff and took cabs to Umaid for lunch.

The scene was when we rolled up to this palace was insane. Driving through town, it’s like a slightly nicer, but directionally-similar, New Delhi. Cars all over the place. Slightly nicer infrastructure, but still a plethora of 3-people-piled-on-homemade-bicycles cruising down the road. Then we take this winding path up to the palace, the gate opens, and BOOM: Trumpets. Camels. Red carpet rolled out. More champagne. I walk upstairs into the palace, and this thing is just glorious. One of the more impressive buildings that I’ve ever seen, filled with portraits of impressive-looking mustached, turban-wearing men adorn the walls. We have lunch in the courtyard. I eat as quickly as possible to expedite my path to my bed for a few hours. Family and some friends stayed in the palace. Most of my crew was at the Ajit hotel down the road.

I Uber there, and Lawrence had beat me to the spot (he skipped lunch). This hotel was villa-style, spread out across a dozen-or-so buildings. Our room and patio overlooked the pool. We had a “suite” with a big, L-shaped couch at the front of the room, then a corridor to the bedroom with a queen bed. Three of us were sharing a room with one bed, so we ordered an extra cot. I passed out for three hours. At this point, I was delirious.

Wake up at 6. Brody can’t find his backpack. Don’t have time to look; time to get dressed for the Sangeet. Lawrence and I practice our dance routine again in the hotel. Brody lays in bed doomscrolling on his phone. We throw on some kurtas (I’m wearing red with a black vest that Lawrence scooped for me), then we Uber to Fort Mehrangarh. We thought we were 30 minutes late. We were still 30 minutes early.

We pull up at the fort, and massive spotlights are painting its wall with a wedding logo. More camels. More trumpets. A bar outside; more champagne.

Tanmaye and Quinn arrive, the gates open, and they lead us on an ~hour pilgrimage to the top of the fort, where the first party in Jodhpur will take place. The walk through the fort felt like Alice in Wonderland meets Aladdin. As we reached higher elevation, we would peer from the ramparts toward the interior to watch exotic dancers move their bodies to hypnotic music. A half-dozen fire breathers performed a show. Two women in what must have been ~20-foot-tall stilts swayed back and forth to a rhythmic beat. And a few guys dressed as monkeys sprinted around on all fours, hiding in the castle walls before jumping out to intimidate guests. I said I wasn’t going to drink after my stomach issues. This was not an event to experience sober. I took imodium and hammered my third cocktail of the evening.

Those monkeys were just nuts, man.

Finally, we make it to the top. An interior courtyard of the castle that had been retrofitted with a massive stage, several bars, and yet another insane spread of foods, most of which I couldn’t begin to pronounce. We head first to the bar, then to the buffet station. I try, with the food at least, to take it easy on my stomach. Three different groups perform interpretive dances on the stage. Everyone cheers. Suddenly, “Boys, you’re up!”

Shit. Our turn. Heart rate starts to accelerate. It’s like gearing up for a football game again. We, literally, huddle up and start the “we ready” chant that you see in every Hallmark sports movie, then, “It’s time!” We hit the stage. Crush it. All of that anxiety, for nothing. 10 / 10 performance.

Everyone daps everyone up. We’re just glad to be done. Here’s the YouTube video if you want to watch:

Then Tanmaye and the men in his family have a dance routine. They rush. There’s two other dance routines. They crush. Everyone crushed their respective routines. Go back for another bite to eat. A DJ comes on, we all hit the dance floor. Two hour dance-fest commences. I try to spit game with another girl from the wedding. Vibes seem strong. We chat for 20 minutes. I go back to my crew. Crack some jokes. More dancing. Servers are walking around with shots, I grab a couple. I walk back to the girl. “Here, let’s take these.”

We take the shots. She says, “That was pretty weak.”

Sensing a layup, I say, “Want to get something stronger at the bar?”

She smirks and says, “I’m good.” and walks off.

“Well, I definitely need something stronger.” I go back to the bar. Brody grabs a drink with me instead. I tell him the story. He laughs. I laugh. Back to the dance floor. 1:30 AM. I’m exhausted. I head to the bathroom, which is in the previous courtyard before we entered the party area. I want to leave. I see most of my crew hanging out chatting near the bathroom. I wait til they’re distracted and make my way to the exit. 2 AM. Taxi home. Pass out.

Half wake up to Brody and Lawrence. Are they staring at me? I don’t care. Back to sleep. I wake up. 10:30 AM. “Finally, rested,” I think. I grab breakfast, it’s pretty solid. More omelettes. More waffles. I head to the gym. My stomach is finally cooperating; Larry walks in too. I hit back squats, then pull ups and and ab circuit. Feeling good. I jump in the pool. It’s frigid. I can feel my manhood hide inside myself for warmth. Marcos jumps in. Then Toni. I think he’s going to get hypothermia. Ben jumps in.

“INU. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE ROCKBAND?”

My friends call my Inu. It’s Japanese for “dog.” Like, “shiba inu.” long story.

“rock band?”

“Yeah! a rockband came on… did you… leave before the rock band?”

“I mean, I guess.”

“You left at 12:30??”

Lawrence pipes up, “That rock band didn’t come on til like 2:45!”

I think to myself, “how did a whole other band come on… at 2:45?”

Ben said, “Damn. I guess I was there til 4.”

Go back to the room. Brody still can’t find his backpack; he heads to the airport. It isn’t there either. He comes back. We shower and get ready for the next thing: Haldi.

We head back to the palace, where workers were busy constructing a massive stage for what I assumed to be the Indian wedding that night. I was directed down and to the right through a series of hedges to another bar and dining area near a nice pool. I was wearing a yellow, shiny kurta. Brody, Lawrence and I stopped to take some pictures and aura farm.

Then to the pool. Then to the bar by the pool. I had what I think was a Corona mixed with a bloody mary. It was fine. For lunch, I had a fat plate of Indo-Mexican cuisine. Indian and Mexican food are directionally similar, so the hybrid was delicious. Back to the pool. Jacob and Laura gave speeches. Then Jonah, one of Tanmaye’s friends, and Maya, his sister / one of Quinn’s friends, gave speeches. We all cheered. Another corona-mary cocktail. More pictures. This “party” was a bit more casual, so I posted up at a table with my Columbia friends and just riffed for 30 minutes. Then music started. We walk back to the pool. Tanmaye’s dad is laughing and dumping a basket of what appears to be a mixture of flour and yellow feathers on the couple. Jacob pours soda on their heads.

I have no idea what’s going on. We all get on the stage. We all start dumping stuff on them. Then we start dumping stuff on each other. I’m throwing feather/flour clumps at Brody. Ben hits me in the face with a massive mound of this unidentified substance. Everyone jumps in the pool. The pool had been roped off the whole time, like you shouldn’t jump in. But they can’t stop 15 people from jumping in.

Back to the hotel. Brody finds his backpack: another guy had accidentally grabbed it thinking it was his, and didn’t check until a day later. Trip = saved.

Tonight is wedding #1: the Indian wedding. But first! The baraat. I have no idea what a “baraat” is, but apparently it’s like a “last journey” that the groom takes before meeting the bride, where he rides on a horse or vintage car to the wedding venue. This is not a solemn journey, it’s a banger. The irony is that we’re supposed to “delay” his arrival via dancing in front of the car. Apparently, every culture has an undertone of “don’t do it!” Regarding a man getting married.

We throw on our sherwanis and head back to the palace, where our drivers drop us off on the bottom of the road. He lets us out in front of a marching band standing at the ready. The tuba players start right as we get out of the car, meaning that they’re playing directly in our ears.

Tinnitus.

There’s a small stage set up, plus two bars and some food stations. There’s also three seats next to a couple of mirrors, where I see someone having a turban tied to their head. I grab a blue cloth and sit down. An Indian dude twists part of the cloth and says “hold.” I hold. Over the next five minutes, he twists this cloth around my head an impossible number of times. Ben is snickering taking pictures. I look in the mirror. I like the turban look. “Maybe I’ll make this my new Linkedin photo," I think to myself. I grab a tea. Then a beer. Everyone else gets their turbans. We take photos and crack jokes. Then Tanmaye takes the stage for what would be an hour-long ceremony in which he got a gold turban and lots of jewelry. Back to the street.

Tanmaye gets on a horse. It’s wearing more jewelry than him. Music starts. He’s moving at a speed of less than 1 foot per hour. The band is crushing it. We all start dancing. A truck pulls up. The trailer behind it is filled with beers and cocktails enclosed in water bottles. Basically, advanced High Noons. I grab a couple. More dancing. Tanmaye’s horse makes it 17 feet after an hour. He is then moved to a Rolls Royce. His childhood driver, who hasn’t stopped smiling in 3 days, is driving. He regularly stops driving to get out of the car and dance. Or get on top of the car, dancing. Their top speed never surpasses 1 mph.

Indian Pit Bull shows up. I have no idea who he was but that’s the best description I have. He arrives on a massive, two-story trailer covered in speakers, standing on the second floor. He starts playing what must be Indian bangers, because all of the locals went nuts when the music started. We caught onto the beat and started throwing down. Tanmaye’s uncle Bobby appears out of nowhere with a bottle of liquor.

“you drink! you drink! you drink!”

We all follow orders.

The symbols from the band are so, so loud. I linger in the back. More tinnitus.

We approach the palace. Bobby grabs us. “Dance in front of the car! Stop the car!” We all lay on the ground in “protest” while we continue to dance. The car stops. The palace is gorgeous. We aura farm in front of it. More pictures. Finally, we can go inside.

Someone steals a shoe. Apparently, there’s a tradition at Indian weddings called “Jotta Chupai,” or “shoe hiding,” where the bride’s female relatives steal the groom’s shoes as he arrives, hiding them and demanding a ransom for their return. Someone apparently asked for $200,000, then a $40,000 safari, taking it a bit too far. I think they ended up with $2k. I have no idea if the shoe(s) were ever returned.

We walk downstairs behind the palace. Construction was complete, I was looking at a scene from Star Wars or Dune. Walk down the red carpet on the stairs to a stage with a spotlight on it, waiting for the couple of the evening. Two bars, in elevated buildings, to the right and left, with red carpets leading to them as well. Seats facing the stage in front of me, then more seats, further back, facing a newly-constructed temple, which I presumed would hold the evening’s ceremony. Brody and I grab seats in the bar/building construct on the left. We wait. And wait. And drink. And wait. Suddenly, the most intense music of the weekend kicks off. I mean it was like the movie 300. Tanmaye takes the stage. Then Quinn is escorted down, her head covered by some sort of cover carried by her family. Drones are flying around at 50 mph recording from all angles. Fireworks explode to my left and they take the stage to my right. I notice a dining area further behind the temple to my left. Brody and I walk over.

We grab a drink, then grab dinner plates. I strike up a conversation with another girl. She and one of her friends had largely been traveling in a four-person pack with a gay couple. Brody and I grab a table with them. I try to talk to the girl. Again, zero traction. End up spending more time talking to the gay couple. They’re chill. The girl I had chatted with at the previous evening’s events sits down next to Brody. They appear to hit it off. Gay couple leaves. Girl I was attempting to wine and dine leaves. I’m inadvertently third-wheeling, I leave. I link up with Lawrence and say, “Don’t interrupt Brody.” We then watch, in a mixture of amusement and horror, as Ben and Toni walk by, glance at each other, snicker, then sit at Brody’s table, fulling blowing up his spot. Lawrence and I walk back over there as well.

There’s nothing worse than attempting to be suave with a girl, then a bunch of your boys pull up on your spot. Just an all-time poor situation. Brody and the girl eventually go to the bar. Brody eventually walks back, with one less girl, a few minutes later. Lawrence and I glance at Ben and Toni and say, “What was that for?”

They play dumb. “What are you talking about?”

We all laugh. More drinks. It’s 11 PM. Now midnight. Ceremony still hasn’t started. Finally, music begins to play. We take our seats. I’m hanging out with Lawrence, Sebo, and some of the Northwestern guys. Tanmaye and Quinn are in the temple in the back of the courtyard. About half of the crowd is watching attentively. Half is floating back and forth to the bar. Eventually, after 45 minutes, I take one more loop to the bar as well. 2 AM. 2:15. Ceremony over. We go back to the palace. After party in the front room, + more food in the courtyard where we had the first lunch. There’s a glowing, spinning cheetah statue in the middle of the floor. The walls are covered in mounted animals. DJ plays too many Indian beats; at this time of the night, if you want to keep the crowd rolling, you have to rip top 50 dance tracks. I’m there til the lights come on. Back to the hotel with Brody and Lawrence. Good night world.

Wake up at 10:45, make breakfast right at close. End up sharing a table with the dude who bid $200k on the shoes; he’s hysterical. He also stole Brody’s backpack. Chat with a couple of Quinn’s friends as well. We all look terrible. Someone’s mother was in the restaurant; she found my jokes to be funny. Take another dive in the pool (cold plunge, Huberman would be proud). Then throw on a linen shirt and scarf for the Bahu Swagat. Hit the bar, grab a drink and some food. The band is playing. Turns out, I know half of the band. Toni, Sebo, and Ben are on the drums. “Not bad,” I think. I run back to the room. Come back down. Eight men from the wedding are in all black holding rifles. “These ceremonies are insane,” I think. Post up on a bench with Brody, Ben, and Lawrence. I’m exhausted; it’s been a long wedding. Stand up to watch Quinn’s parents dance. Then Quinn dances. It’s all beautiful. I grab ice cream. Lawrence tells me, “ice cream is a kid’s food.”

I don’t apologize for using my free will.

Back to the room; one more event: the Christian wedding. I grab my other suit: a new gray one I’d gotten over the summer; still hadn’t worn it. Shower, suit, tie. Back to the palace, yet again. We’re greeted with champagne (again). Every time mine is half-empty, a server pours more in. I explore a few of the palace hallways. More mustaches on impressive-looking men. We head to the room across the hall from the after party room from the night before; it’s been set up to resemble a Christian chapel. The pastor, Sean, is straight out of every Protestant service I’ve ever attended, including the couple of quick, witty, G-rated jokes he dropped before the service began. It felt like home.

Tanmaye walks in, then the wedding party, then Quinn. The service was concise but incredibly sweet, even I teared up a bit as they exchanged their vows. After the service, Lawrence and I explored the premises for more photo ops, where we found Tanmaye’s driver upstairs taking mirror selfies. We joined him.

Then, back outside for the dinner (and, you guessed it: another party). I hit the buffet with Brody and grabbed a seat with our Columbia friends. There was a stage in the part of this courtyard a bit closer to the palace, where a band started playing; the dining area was further back. We started working our way to the stage. Then, siblings and friends gave speeches, with Toni and Ben representing the Columbia boys. Not bad, though I do have respect for people who can roll into a speech, no notes. Band plays a few more songs, it’s approaching midnight as they say, “This is our last one of the night!” (before the obvious, ‘one last song!’ that always occurs after).

“Early night,” I think.

Nope! Another after party. I head to the outdoor bar for another drink before the after party. Espresso martini; I need caffeine. A new girl, who I handed seen before, walks up. “Get two of those?” She asks (demands). I oblige. She tells me she’s from the states but lives in Italy. I tell her I’ve been to Italy a few times, once eating 20 pizzas in 13 days. She’s both confused and amused. I figure this is a decent chance do lean into the ‘writer’ side of me, as she mentioned she studied the classics, so I said, “I’m a writer.” “Where do you write?” “Substack.”

She’s not impressed.

“I’m writing a book.”

Still not impressed. “Do you have a publisher?”

“Penguin.”

Impressed. Funny how that works. We start chatting with a couple of Indian guys who had walked up; one was a CBS alumnus as well. I go to the party. This DJ understood the assignment. American bangers. Maybe, in hindsight, it’s because it was after the Christian wedding and not Indian. Idk. Another drink. Dance floor. Tie comes off. Ben grabs me. “We need to go outside, now.” He seems serious. We head to the courtyard. A bunch of older Indian men are there.

“How much do you want to bet?”

“What?”

This 60-year-old Indian man stares at me, takes another hit of his cigarette, then repeats himself. “I arm wrestle your friend. Gamble on it. How much are you going to bet?”

Ah. Apparently, Ben had orchestrated an arm wrestling ring to take place the final night of the wedding.

I look in my wallet and see ~$120 and change.

I glance at this Indian dude. He definitely has old man strength, and, at 12:42 AM, there’s a healthy dose of nicotine and whiskey flowing through his veins. I glance at Ben. There’s more than a healthy dose of tequila flowing through his veins; we’ve been drinking non-stop for five days.

“$120, that’s all the cash I have.”

“$20?”

“No. One HUNDRED and twenty dollars.”

“How many rupees is that?”

“I don’t know, like 13,000?”

The Indian man grabs his wallet and yells “THIRTEEN THOUSAND RUPEES” and throws it on the table.“I guess I’m betting $120 on an arm wrestling match,” I think to myself. I throw my cash down too.

Day five of an Indian wedding, and I’m watching one of my best friends arm wrestle another one of my best friends’ uncles, with a dozen ~30-year-old American dudes betting against a dozen ~60-year-old Indian dudes on the outcome.

Ben looks like he’s going to lose. I worry that I’ll lose my money. Given their seating, his arm is closest to the edge of the table, sliding off. The match pauses; we grab a smaller round table they can stand on opposite sides of, so neither has a leverage advantage. Match commences. Ben smokes the old man. USA chant breaks out. I get my 13,000 rupees. Happy Inu. A celebratory cigarette. Then back to the dance floor. Another drink. Someone’s scarf is now a limbo pole. Sebo wows the crowd by going full 90 degree bend. I don’t even think about attempting it. Two hour rave commences.

I step out to the courtyard to grab some pizza. Italy girl from earlier steps out. I engage in what can only be described as a 90-minute conversational vortex in which I quoted and described countless references of the Greek and Roman classics that were either entirely fabricated and/or extrapolated far beyond the reaches of my actual knowledge for the sake of an engaging conversation. That’s fine. I fully endorse keeping conversations fun at all costs. I thought everyone had left. Lights were coming on. I was facing the dance floor and saw little activity in there. Girl goes to the bathroom. I glance behind me. Half of my crew was still there at a table 15 feet behind me. Classic. Party’s over. Time to go home. Brody, Lawrence, and I grab a cab. Get back to the room. Our door is cracked open. Not great. We cut on the lights; a shadowy shape darts from the couch back to the bedroom. A few seconds later, it comes flying back through the corridor to the door, looking for a way out. Lawrence yells and jumps out of the way.

The cat sprints full speed out the door, meowing at the top of it’s lungs.

“Okay, we need to go to bed,” I think.

Next morning. I feel like a human cigarette. Shuffle to breakfast, feeling horrible. Sit with Nana and Marcos. Breakfast is the only thing giving me the strength to get through what will soon be the longest travel day of my life. We fly back to Delhi at ~12, then don’t have our flights back to the US til 11:30 PM. Eat food. Drink coffee. Back to the room. Pack. Lawrence, Brody, and I are the last cab to the airport. The Jodhpur airport is, for lack of a better term… lackluster. Security takes an hour. We survive. Back on the plane. I’m seated next to Larry. Commence cracking a dozen inside jokes that have no business being on Substack. We get to the Delhi airport. I grab a Krispy Kreme donut; first taste of America in a week. Now we have 12 hours to kill. What to do, what to do.

I book a room at an airport hotel. The “Roseate.” We split it eight ways. Me, Landon, Brody, Lawrence, Claudia, Jules, Ben, Sebo. I grab a cab to the hotel. The concierge asks me how many nights. I say “8 hours.” He is confused but asks no questions. We all drop our bags in the room and hit the restaurant for lunch. I get two sushi rolls and a chocolate shake. Why not? Free will.

Back to the room, I write the first half of this blog while half the crew naps; Brody, Lawrence, and Sebo left on earlier flights. Then back to the airport, and, finally, 16-hour flight home. Not a bad week.

Will I ever go to India again? I have no idea. But if you do have a chance to go to an Indian wedding, you should probably do it. Just avoid the lamb burgers.

And congratulations again to Tanmaye and Quinn, I wish you both a lifetime of love and happiness.

- Jack

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