Gujarati Wedding Drama!

My family and I attended the wedding of one of our neighbour’s daughters today. They had set-up an outdoor tent at a venue an hour away from the city; it was a pretty extravagant occasion. There was a lot of gossip going around about who was wearing what, the bride’s make-up choice, the approximate cost of the wedding, etc. The food was pretty good; along with the traditional Gujarati dishes were Vegetable Manchurian balls, Hakka noodles, Cheese-Corn-Tomato soup, and Pineapple Macaroni & Cheese – all are quite popular non-Indian items in Ahmedabad.

In the evening the bride’s mother caused havoc in our apartment building, she learned that her 22-kt gold necklace, worth nearly 2 lacs, had been stolen. All the residents are talking about it, spreading the word from one flat to the next, about the missing goods. As soon as PG got word of the news, Durga-mata paid her a visit and she went into one of her trances. She claims to have received a vision of exactly what colour suitcase the necklace is hidden in, and who’s responsible of the theft. The necklace will be discovered at 11pm, she said. It’s now 10:55pm, some residents have gathered together at our flat, anxiously waiting to see if our neighbour’s premonition will come true. Stay tuned...

On another note, all week long there’s been news coverage about Andra Pradesh and the possibility of it being divided into two separate states (the new state being Telangana). Politician and Telangana-separatist K. Chandrasekara Rao went on a hunger strike since November 29 to push his fight for a separate state forward. This caused a lot of friction in the community and officials worried that Naxals would take advantage of fragile situation. So now it looks like the 50 year old struggle for a new state will soon be a reality, but it will come with its own problems. There’s another heated debate already rising over which of the two states will get to keep Hyderabad!

It’s 11:30pm. I’m off to bed, still no word on the missing necklace.