I stuck to my promise and slept quite late, managing to awaken, shower, and choke down a bit of cereal around 10 in the morning. Sheila was determined to keep me from doing much of anything that day (and she was busy beside), so I bummed around and read until lunch time.

I had a nice light lunch at the country club - a half tandoori chicken with a nice, delicate ginger flavor and some nice Chinese stir-fried vegetables, along with a bit of roti - then decided to steel myself for a little stroll to Khan Market, the Very Luxurious retail space a bit down from the International Centre.

To my suprise, I was mostly able to walk without doubling over with intestinal death throes, so I made it down to the market (while dodging the usual homocidal taxi drivers) to have a look around. I pawed through book stores and was happy to encounter a nice looking gelato place for future reference. Otherwise, my presence there really had no purpose, so I found a nice place to sit beside a dozing and intermingled pack of rickshaw drivers and dogs, sipping a Coke and watching the world go by. I enjoyed watching a group of new Western inductees to India deliberating over rickshaws, confusion and irritation written all over their faces. That was me once, that was not me anymore. Perhaps they too would learn a couple of creative Hindi swear words and rude gestures to use on rickshaw drivers. It is only a natural progression.

I wandered back to the International Centre and freshened up, as Sheila was picking me up soon to take me to her nephews wedding. I wanted to go, since I though I'd enjoy seeing a Hindu wedding (and the prospect of an open bar is always an attractive one.) I selected my nice black fifties-style dress, and managed to pull myself together so I only looked slightly deathly instead of mostly deathly. Sheila and Rajev picked me up, Sheila looking very dapper in a lovely cream colored sari (accented with vintage Moghul jewerly) and off we went.

The hotel was quite close - near the Qutub Minaret - and we got there quickly, sideskirting an incredibly elaborate Indian children's party happening at the other venue. (Indians apparantly have a thing for throwing ridiculously over the top 10th birthday parties, according tot he newspapers.)

The pool area looked beautiful, decked out with tiny flickering candles and orange and white marigolds, which hold some sort of symbolic purpose in Hinduism that I cannot determine. The wedding ceremony itself had just begun but was slated to go on for about forty minutes, so everyone seated themselves and gossiped and ate cocktail snacks, keeping one polite eye on the usual puja going-ons. Sheila's nephew is from Delhi, but the bride was from Assam - one of the Indian hill provinces - and thus the ceremony mixed traditions from both regions. (Not that I would have noticed.) She certainly looked gorgeous, outfitted in a shining jewel-red sari with tremendous quantities of gold jewerly, her girlfriends attired in shining black and silver and a lovely turqouoise blue. The groom wore a cream colored kurta and a deeply impressive headdress of flowers and jewels, and he looked both elated and profoundly embarassed, which I guess is how one should look at a wedding.

The ceremony itself involved a lot of reading in Sanskrit, a lot of dabbing of ghee on things and into things, a lit fire, throwing many unindentifiable things into said-fire, tying a knot, untying a knot, and some other stuff. Unfortunately even the Hindu's present I asked were not entirely certain what was going on...mostly they wanted a drink. I will probably have to do some research.

The ceremony did go on for quite some time and I was amused to hear Sheila and her friends and relations muttering darkly under their breath about how they desperately needed a drink. By the time the ceremony reached an end and everyone eagerly tossed marigolds at the newly united couple, Sheila led an exodus to the open bar. I was only too happy to follow. We grabbed our tumblers of Teachers and soda and adjourned to a nearby table, and I happily talked to Sheila's various relations while we waited for the buffet line to open. One of her other nephews is a California lawyer who owns a vineyard in the Santa Barbara foothills....I shall have to investigate. Another friend is a writer for a lifestyle magazine in Delhi, and we enjoyed talking about journalism and travel (I had by then moved to wine.)

Sheila and Rajev were getting a bit bored and the food took quite a long time to come out, so we determined we'd leave as soon as they fed us. The food itself was quite excellent - I remember some tasty salt and pepper fried bhindi, mutton rogan josh, curried eggplants, and made to order rotis, along with the usual panoply of Indian desserts. There was also some delicious and unexpected tiramisu.

I called up Adam to see what his plans were for the evening, and was suprised to find he was headed to a club near the Qutub Minaret as well. Obviously I wanted to join him, so I asked Sheila, who was rather doubtful of disposing me at a club under her watch. (Understandable.)

Indian notions of protecting single young women differ markedly from our own. Sheila didn't want me taking cabs on my own and especially not rickshaws, and she wasn't particularly thrilled about me going out in the first place....I was rather impressed she agreed to it.

She dropped me off at the International Centre and I hopped a cab to the club, which was a bit difficult to find. The taxi driver thankfully was one of those rare Indian public-transportation saints, and we put our heads together and found the place quickly enough - IndoChine, a sort of opium den themed place. As Adam was completely unable to hear a thing I was telling him on the cell phone (I'M HERE...WHAT...REPEAT THAT....WHAATTT...FUCKK), we sort of blundered into each at the entry-way then went in.

The place was packed and certainly impressive looking, with a sort of Chinese imperial palace theme - think low lighting, terra cotta warriors, and lots and lots of red. Delhi's contingent of Beautiful People had turned out to dance like dorks and drink overpriced liquor. The crowd didn't strike me as markedly different from the types I encountered in Bangalore, though women in Delhi do seem a little more comfortable with showing more flesh then in Bangalore.

Shawna had introduced Adam to a few of her friends, who I in turn introduced myself to. I am eternally hopeless with names, but they were pretty nice, especially the one from Singapore who made me a little animal from cigarette butts and toothpicks. I appreciate things like that.

I danced a bit but was still feeling the residual tummy lurgy - and anyway, this guy on the dance floor with a freakishly huge chest was violating my personal and set in stone No Touching rule. "Oh, you are looking very beautiful, let me put my arm around you!" "...No."

I know Adam was disappointed that I wasn't performing my usual party trick of cadging free drinks but I was just not on my A game that night. Scoring free drinks does require some modicum of effort. I ended up not ordering anything...I figured I'd drank plenty at the wedding. Adam, of course, had vodka and diet coke.

The others filtered out eventually, citing tiredness, but Adam and I were coming off a rather long stint in Bangalore and were tremendously impressed that it was past 11:30 and we were still out. We held out for a while as the place emptied out, trying to determine whether we were pathetic enough to share a drink (we were not.) Adam teased me mercilessly for my mangled American pronunciations, but then again, he was under the impression that there were 53 states, so I guess we're even.

They kicked us out at 2:00 AM, and we filtered outside in the usual late night attempt to find a rickshaw. This proved more difficult then usual, so we walked up the empty street for a bit, weaving about in the manner of ever so slightly lit people. Adam rattled off various US states and I provided brief succinct descriptions: "New Mexico....deserts and Santa Fe. Also enchiladas. Florida...palm trees. retirees on the brink of death, nice beaches....Minnesota...cold, miserable, eww."

And so forth. I think I should write a very very brief travel guide to the USA for foreigners. It would make everyone's travel decisions so much easier.

We finally found a rickshaw. Unfortunately, Delhi is very big and very spread out and rickshaw rides seem to take a million years, which is especially unpleasant when you are wearing a fairly light dress and it is cold. But I lived. ( I always live. I have concluded I have the constitution and personal tendencies of a cockroach: somewhat perverse and unpleasant, but curiously difficult to kill.)

I wandered back to the Centre (the guard was asleep this time like a reasonable person) and fell asleep.