In one of the comments in Dog Days of Summer, Steph made it a point to tell how I was enjoying myself at a party. This was at a pre-wedding party for one of my co-workers, Naveen. It’s called a Sangeet. The party was held at a lavishly beautiful mansion of Naveen’s uncle in Orchard Park. If pictures become available, I’ll post the link in a later posting.

Anyway…to start the evening off, we were the first ones there. Steph loves when we are the first ones since it gives her a reason to complain that I am rushing her while she gets ready. Well, truth of the matter is, she loves to take her silly-ass time…like over an hour getting ready and us men – we never take more than 15 minutes! So we go hide in the woods and wait for others to arrive including Naveen and his family (you would think they were there already…somewhere in the mansion).

Then, as we are touring the grounds, we came upon a middle-aged gentleman who we thought may be the catering manager or party planner, introduced ourselves including showing the invitations so that he didn’t think we were party crashers and Steph asked him, “What a beautiful house? Whose is it?” The response….”Mine”. It was Naveen’s uncle….BACK TO THE WOODS! A few minutes later, some more co-workers and their spouses finally showed up so we were able to rest assured the evening is just about to begin.

As the evening began to unfold, the weather went from hot and humid to cool and dry…almost as if the Indian Gods were watching over the most beautiful affair one could imagine. For those of you who saw the Godfather, this was an Indian version of the wedding in that movie. No expense was spared; and many of the party goers were dressed in the most colorful outfits all decked out in Indian jewelry. And the music, food and booze….WOW!

The beauty of it all for me…I heard every single word anyone was saying (in English, of course), every beat of the music (move over John Travolta) and, didn’t have to rely on Steph to tell me what the conversation was about! AWESOME! For the first time in “God knows how long”, I was truly enjoying partying and not having to resort to make-believe conversations.

Unfortunately, the evening eventually had to come to an end as the clock slowly approached midnight. And the next day was the wedding ceremony called Anand Karaj and a small post-wedding reception. But nothing like the night before.

Congratulations to the newly-weds, Naveen and Jenni!