All the Single Ladies

One of the many traditions surrounding an Indian Wedding is the Garba night which is the dance party the night before the wedding.  Typically both sides of the family would spend months preparing Bollywood style dance performances that would be performed at this event, but because Sankat's family alone was preparing both sides of the ceremonies they didn't have the time to prepare the dance moves.  So Sankat and I were asked to perform with our friends.  The closest I ever came to Bollywood dancing was knowing a friend who once took a class so I decided that we would entertain with good old American pop music!!!

Over Thanksgiving break I invited some of my friends over to my house to choreograph where we drank more bottles of wine than 8 counts planned so when we arrived in India, needless to say I had nothing planned.  After being delayed by Air India, measuring outfits and bangle shopping we had about two hours before the Garba before our dance practice to even begin.

I had to go to the salon to get my hair done for the Garba so I put Amethyst and Gina in charge of rounding up the girls and beginning dance practice.  Amethyst and Gina are my two friends who have watched a music video in the past five years and their moves really resemble a hip hop dancer!  Most of my other friends' dancing experience has occurred in bars at about two am after several cocktails or hippie dancing at a Rusted Root concert. 

When I arrive back at the Raj Path Club there are about 15 women dancing in the courtyard.  As Gina and Amethyst are calling out counts there is construction going on in the background.  Now construction in India is done completely by manual labor and is not gender biased.  As my friends are learning Beyonce's moves there are women barefoot in saris hauling buckets of sand on top of their heads.  As they are going back and forth to the dumping site of the dirt they are peering into the courtyard gaping at us dancing and as they are walking back and forth we are straining our necks to see them work, both of us fascinated by each others actions.  They were probably going to be much more successful at hauling dirt than we were going to be at this dance performance.