I have attended quite a lot of weddings all over India from Gujrati to Marwari but primarily Punjabi weddings because I myself am a Punjabi. I attended one yesterday as well and I realized how fun-filled and brilliant they are (not that others aren't, but I enjoy these more). There are some very interesting observations, some things you'll only see in a Punjabi Wedding:
* Baarat Reception time will be scheduled at 8:00 PM, but it won't reach before 11PM (this is the earliest).
* Through the entire Baarat procession, friends and family of the groom will be dancing in front of the ghodi throughout (and more often than not, fireworks being demonstrated steps away from the dancing crowd).
* Alongside, the baarat, there will always be few cars, running one after the other, stopping for sometime and then moving along. Whenever they stop, Khul Ja Sim Sim happens, the famous Dikki opens and I don't know why but children are kept away from it :)
* One of the rituals is for the bride's family to greet the groom's family at the entrance itself, and so the bride's family has sweets, gifts, garlands, etc in their hands. But the groom's family and friends will reach right there on the gate, call the dhol wallah and start dancing there. Its evident that the bride's side is getting impatient and are probably tired of holding so much stuff in their hands for long, but NO, the dance has to happen. Same 3 tunes on the dhol in a cycle and the dance continues. Currency notes waved over all dancing, and then tucked in the mouth of one of whom is dancing and then he will do his own sweet steps, take his time, before giving away then note to the dhol wallah. This dancing in itself can take HOURS!
* Once in, a lot of eating and with evolving trends, DJ with loud music, dhinchak lights and smoke! This DJ will play tracks totally different from any DJ in a disc, for obvious reasons of giving what is demanded.
Now here, I would like to draw your attention to one special event that happened in Indian history. This was the release of the movie Singh is Kinng. Songs from this movie hold special soft corners in hearts of everyone present there. The not-so-big dance floor witnesses a sudden rush when a song from this movie is played for 7th or 8th time in the movie. The 7 or 8 times that it has already been played will never see any crowd on the floor, but if you turn around looking here and there 360 degrees you will definitely find one or two people getting excited within and shaking their heads, moving hands or entire body expressing their intent to just jump on the floor.
Now all it takes is one person who would catch one or two other people on the floor when that song is played for the 7th or 8th time. And then what, other already excited people, get super excited and jump over. And as and when the population density on the floor increases, everyone goes out and gets at least 2 more people each to dance thereby flooding the floor.
What follows are totally traditional, otherwise unconventional (ask the experts) but total "fun" steps. These steps may seem funny to them, but you'll definitely enjoy them even if you are just seeing someone else perform them. Now there are so many many many different tracks, but NO, these Singh is Kinng tracks, and some other selected Punjabi tracks which exist since the Big Bang happened and formed the earth will be played often, in fact quite often.
One popular step is, Running away from the floor, getting a cola glass, keeping it on the hand, and slowly dancing your way to the floor again. gish! And you become the center of attraction, rightly so :)
Most of the weddings, still can't do away with dhols so they will have dhols being played alongside and will enjoy both.
Am actually not quite learned to be able to pen down the entire experience in words. You have to be there, see it to understand.
* All through the ceremony, the bride and groom will meet everyone, dressed in so much taam jhaam and full bright yellow mercury lights shining on them and click after click with people after people, stand up, click, smile, meet, sit down before the next set of people come. While the rest of the crowd enjoys eating, treating their stomachs, bride and groom STARVE!
* During the ritual of exchanging var maalah again its mandatory for groom's friends to lift the groom up away from the bride's reach. Another "fun" incident for another fifteen minutes or more.
* Lastly, when most of the people have left, a big table will be set for the families of bride and groom to have food and NOW, everyone will come and keep on feeding the bride groom, one gulaabjamun, while they were having roti, then laddoo while they just tasted daal. All that is possible is fed all together, not even considering that he probably has daal, rice and jalebi in their mouths at the same time!
Phew, long post :)
But I seriously enjoy attending these kinds of weddings. Truly brilliant and totally fun filled!
The one I attended yesterday, I was forced to EAT, EAT and EAT and then since I couldn't eat more, I was taken to dance, dance and dance and then EAT EAT EAT and then DANCE DANCE DANCE (on Jee Karda, Singh is Kinng, Oye Lucky and other few standard age old Punjabi Tracks). My stomach was on the verge of exploding by the end of it if only I would have fallen on my stomach, full blast :)
A Punjabi Wedding
Doosra: Update Twitter, Facebook via SMS
Much like 'Doosra' in Cricket, here is a workaround to update Twitter and Facebook via SMS (even if you are not an Airtel customer) at standard SMS charges (tested for India). I found it via twitter thorugh @testbot123 on this page.
So, its a simple 4 step process and here we start.
Step 1 - Create a page on Facebook with a suitable name under the "Brand, Product, or Organization" head and select "Website" from the list below it. Create the page and then Publish it.
Step 2 - We now have to Edit Page and look for Mobile option there. We have to Edit settings for Mobile by clicking on the icon as shown.
Now Activate Facebook Mobile but beware that doing so will end any previous link of facebook mobile with your account and you won't be able to update your profile status.
Step 3 - We now have to link this page to Twitter which can be done on this page.
Doing so will make the status message of your facebook page reflect back on your twitter profile.
We are half way through and ready to tweet via SMS. Send in your tweet as an SMS to 92FACEBOOK (9232232665). This will update your fanpage and thus your twitter status. Standard SMS charges apply as it is a 10-digit mobile number.
Step 4 - Now to use the same update even on facebook you have two choices. First choice is to use Twitter Application on Facebook and then use the option "Allow Twitter to update your Facebook status"
The second option is to use Selective Twitter Application which allows you to update Facebook ststus with your Twitter Update only if the latter has the tag "#fb" in it.
Now to get Twitter Updates referenced to you we go for two more steps
Step 1 - You need RSS Feed for tweets addressed to you which is of the form
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=@<twitterID>
Here Replace
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=@random543217654
Step 2 - We now use Google SMS Channels and Create a New Private Channel and use the Link above in the RSS Feed option there as shown:
You can choose who all can subscribe to your channel by "Who can subscribe" option.
And we are done, make sure you have set your Phone Number correctly to use Google SMS Channels.
I would like to thank fundubytes once again for sharing this information.
Asli Cricket!
It happened today that while browsing through different TV Channels I landed up on Star Cricket that was showing highlights of the age old ICC Knockout Semi-Finals between India and South Africa (2000/01). Ah! Few minutes into the match and a rhapsodic feeling from with said 'Yeh hai Asli Cricket'. Suddenly a boring, hot and sunny Sunday afternoon became as lively as ever. A walk down the memory lane of how we were so crazy about Cricket, collecting Center Fresh cricket trump cards, maintaining a diary with names of cricketers in alphabetical order to help us fare better in the Cricket Antakshri in breaks in between classes (I remember A se Andrew Hudson). Brilliance!
It was the fag end of the Indian Innings when I started watching and a 20 something year old boy next door resembling Yuvraj Singh was smashing the ball all around the park. Utter innocence on his face, boy it was some sight watching him smash the Great Great Allan Donald who in that match gave 34 runs in his spell of 10 overs that too with 12 off the 3 boundaries that Yuvraj hit in his last over. Allan Donald, the speed machine of his time, it took me hours to imitate his bowling style, especially the jump before he released the ball, turned half a kilometer away from the stumps while in the air :)
On the crease with our Number 12 Yuvraj Singh was one of the greatest (of course after Sachin Tendulkar), our Dada who scored 141 runs off 142 balls in this match. With thin, natural, unstyled moustache Dada seemed in great touch. Later in the match, while India was balling, I even saw Lumble sporting similar moustache. Chehre pe massomiyat jhalakti thi
Then it was that one delivery when Yuvraj tried to clear the park off Kallis and ended up being caught by another Great Legend, Jonty Rhodes. A player jiske haath mein ball khud aakar gir jati hai, the man who never missed stumps! Asli Cricket?
Guess what happened when Yuvi left? The not so slim, India's then Jonty Rhodes, the person who smacked Zimbabwe in one of the matches I can see blurred images of, Robin Singh came on the crease. That peculiar posture, the way he held the bat, memories :) He was out the first ball, run out, in a mix up with Dada (something which wasn't new, I mean like quite a few times in the match, I could rightly predict what is going to happen next, ganguly being involved in a run out wasn't new).
This was still ok, but eyes went wide open and needed to be rubbed twice when I saw Vinod Kambli on the crease. Out first ball to give way to Vijay Dahiya and slowly other names who had guest appearances in the Indian Cricket Team started coming to my mind. India ended up scoring 295 and soon the South African innings started. I was smiling from ear to ear to see now-our-coach, Gary Kirsten walking down the field followed by few of his brilliant well-timed, zero-power shots for 4s. Another chotta sa masoom ladka, Zaheer Khan then bowled a superb yorker to get rid of Andrew Hall. This reminded me of what was commonly said about him then, 6 ki 6 yorker daal sakta hai yeh, kamaal hai, express bullet ki tarha jaati iski gend
I then witnessed the greatest ever Sachin on the field with number 99 on his back. Those were the days. Kal bhi aaj bhi, Sachin the cricketer and Bucknor the umpire. Along with Bucknor was the Sandeep Patil resembling Peter Willey. All this while I was waiting for Prasad to get that one edge and the umpire's finger to go up so that Prasad can then run down the pitch with the index finger of his left hand up in the air, but that didn't quite happen, though he did bowl that famous 'leg cutter'. I missed Srinath, Cullinan and Cronje :(
Cricket I think has become much more competitive now as compared to then. When it came to fielding it was common to see Cover stretching out his hand pointing towards the extra cover, asking him to go after the ball, the fielder running along the boundary in an effort to stop the ball coming towards the boundary, failing, because he wouldn't dive, just run. All this could be seen, along with the famous rectangular view on the top-left of the screen, showing what the batsmen are upto. Asli Cricket :)
Past experiences do create stereotypes in your mind, which are proven to be correct as in the case of Agarkar being thrashed by the powerful greatness, The Maritzburg Mamba, Lance Klusener who hit the ball so hard that it travelled to the boundary line 100 times faster than Shoaib Akhtar could perhaps ever ball. And when this ball hit the Pepsi board at the boundary, the bang sound was enough to tell you that Klusener hit that one. Talking about stereotypes, it wasn't only the case with Agarkar, but also when I saw Dada standing on the slip, with Kumble balling. I somwhow, knew he would miss if there was a catch and he did! Not once but twice, consecutively. But her was quick (thoda quick) in moving himself out and getting Dravid there. Finally, India won this match but eventually lost to New Zealand in the finals.
Kya din the, kya Cricket tha, 50 over, mahaan player, mahaan batting, woh kalaiyon ka upyog, woh cricket text book se seedha utha ke rakha hua Dravid ka Cover Drive, Long on Long off ko cheerta hua Sachin ka chauka, Bharat ke opening GendBaazo ki description mein likha hua "Right Arm Medium", woh Pavillion End se aate huey Javagal Srinath.
Wahi to tha Asli Cricket!
