as I see it

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 :)

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 with your twitter username. For instance, if your twitter username is random543217654 then the RSS Feed for tweets referenced to you is (remember to prefix ur twitter ID with '@' symbol)

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.