Delay is apparently an Indian virtue. At the reception in the hotel there was a detailed wedding program in which all the ceremonies were listed in minute detail, hour by hour, for Saturday and Sunday. However, no one was interested in these times, so Saturday evening started about 3 hours late and Sunday 2 1/2 hours late.

The ceremonies on Saturday took place in the "Lakshmi Garden" in Panipat. Since between 700 and 1,000 guests were expected (no joke!), the entire garden was equipped with pavilions, a stage and a buffet all around. The guests trickled in (significantly late) and with the arrival of the groom at 8 p.m. the show could begin.

It was not comparable to a western wedding. On the one hand, the sheer number of guests is surprising, and on the other, the ceremonies are unusual. The groom and close relatives sit on the stage with the priest and perform various rites. This means that the groom is accepted by the bride's family and vice versa. Meanwhile, there is a lot going on on the dance floor and other guests are feasting at the buffet. The whole thing is probably not taken too seriously because there are many of these ceremonies and the priest recites the verses in Sanskrit. Nobody speaks it, so nobody knows exactly what is being said.

It doesn't matter, it will be OK. There is plenty of food and the bar is open too. So you can walk around every now and then and meet new people. My intention to try at least a small bite of everything failed because of the sheer number of dishes. Of course it was Indian and Indian-Chinese cuisine, which I really enjoyed. Since it was now cooling down a bit (estimated at 12°C), people gathered around the open fires more and more often.

For me it was over around midnight, especially since I had hardly slept on the flight. The rest of the group apparently dispersed around 2:00 a.m. (late, of course).

On Sunday morning, at the agreed pick-up time, I received a call from the bride's father. He apologized and said that the ceremony would unfortunately be postponed "by a few hours." No problem, as I had expected nothing else. The ceremony was about enthroning the groom, i.e. placing a crown on his head in the costume of a maharajah (how do you spell that?). This is done by the other married young men in the family.

Afterwards and during the trip, everyone had the opportunity to regain their strength. Sunday morning was reserved for close family, so we left for Delhi in a convoy of a bus and a dozen cars. Shortly before Delhi, we continued on, this time under the open sky with a tent for shade. Unfortunately, I had to leave the group at this point because my flight to Bangalore was imminent. Due to the heavy traffic, made worse by the closure of a main road, I arrived just in time, an hour before departure - unnecessary, as the flight was delayed by 1.5 hours. The rest of the trip is history: Air Sahara is considerably better than its name, and the transfer from the airport to the Wipro guest house in Sarjapur was well organized.