party, posh indian style

A friend of ours is getting married (congratulations Tarun!). His family and the bride's family hosted the official engagement ceremony and celebration this week. We missed the ceremony because it was held during working hours but we went to the party that evening to pay our respects.

Now, I've been to some pretty posh parties in my life and, for a girl comin' out the country, I have managed to rub elbows with some remarkably fancy and famous people. But this was something else. This was “like walking onto a movie set”, to quote our friend Jason. This was a Party with a capital “P”.

It was held at the “beach house” of the bride's family. Many old-money families in Chennai have a beach house on the coast of the Bay of Bengal where they rest on weekends and throw parties for their friends. We've been to few of them and they are usually very nice. This particular “beach house” was basically a palace that happens to be on the beach.

Upon exiting the car, we walked down a long covered walkway that had walls made of little honeysuckle flowers strung on threads. They were like hippy-bead curtains, but much more fragrant and classy. The walkway opened onto the front entrance of the house, which in turn (after passing the billiard room) opened onto the vast, expansive yard. The lagoon pool was filled with huge wooden boats, laden with lotus, jasmine, and honeysuckle blossoms. The yard was covered in soft, green grass (sounds boring, I know, but is a rare luxury in South India), and was illuminated entirely by thousands of oil candles sitting in massive candelabras. There were false palm trees scattered among the real ones, made entirely out of wire and jasmine blossoms. The whole place smelled like a child's image of heaven.

From the doorway, one could see five cabana bars. There were waiters in formal attire, walking around with green drinks and blue drinks and red drinks and yellow drinks . . . whiskey and champagne and wine and ice-cold water. On stage in the band shell was the very famous Indian singer, Hariharan. He performed all night. There were gazebos hidden in corners, all draped in flower blossoms, and enough food to feed the 2,000 guests twice over. And when we left, they gave us a box of chocolates. It was really a thing to see. Of course, we failed to bring our camera.

And then we tried to leave. And this is where it gets interesting . . .

The beach house sits at the very end of a long, curvy, single-lane, dirt road. And there were very famous people there. With very famous people come massive security details and lots of extraneous people milling around. With about 2,000 guests, people are arriving and departing constantly. You can see where this is going, I bet.

We asked for our car. More than one hour later, we walked out to the end of the driveway to try to find it ourselves in the lane. Chris was not happy and he did that thing where he stalks off by himself to find it, so we were separated. Of course, being the one who can not drive, I find the car and call him on the phone. He eventually finds me and, hence, the car. At this moment, I find myself forced to do something that I rarely, if ever, do, and that is to be short with Christopher. I believe that it manifested as something like “jesus christ Christopher, don't you dare blow up, not here, not now, this is not the time, this is not the place, just keep your goddam mouth shut and get the hell in the car right now”. Or something akin to that.

We get in the car. Stuck right in the immovable epicenter of a Gordian knot of a traffic jam, facing the opposite direction of the exit. To our left are cars trying to get into the driveway to go to the party. They can't move because cars are also trying to come out. To our right are cars all trying to get out, but according to differing methods and all facing different directions. In front of us are people trying to get out. We're facing them, of course, and behind us people are trying to get in.

Of course, in true Indian style, EVERY SINGLE PERSON WITHIN TEN MILES decided that he knew best about how to solve the problem. There was one man pointing us forward, one man pointing us back, one man shoving us left, and another telling us to go right. And they were all yelling at each other. And large gangs of men telling other cars what to do were yelling at them and at each other and at the world in general. I would not have been at all surprised to find a man telling us to go straight up and hover, nor another instructing us to burrow straight down.

How we ever got out of there, I will never fully understand. But Christopher kept his cool and that, at least, made me happy.

And we had the box of chocolates . . .