Your Indian Wedding


I was looking for a picture of a bridegroom riding a horse, in the north Indian wedding style (what R calls a horse being ridden by a donkey), when I came across this site in California: Fancy Wheelin'.
We pride ourselves on using "safe" horses that have the correct temperment for a festive Indian Wedding. They are comfortable with the dohls and high energy of a wedding event.


Here's another one, in New Jersey, Pony Share. They offer, among other things: "The ability to match the groom with the right size horse" and "A fleet of modern trucks and trailers, equipped to prevent lateness and break-down as well as a back-up plan."
Our choice of decorations and matching umbrellas is yet another reason why our service is second to none! Ours are not bargain basement "plastic type" or quickly put together "Rag shop pieces"!


Each set of our imported decorations has been carefully handcrafted in Rajistan (sic) with only the finest materials, cloth and dazzling beads. The sets consist of 10-12 pieces!.Not the standard 6 and we will also match a free umbrella to go with your set, just for the asking!



You can also get your mandap (pavilion) made by ... Mandap, in New Jersey.




Or why not just go to India for your Indian wedding? A-Z Tours offers to arrange the whole thing:
We can arrange all of this for your marriage or if you are married and want us to organize this for your Wedding Anniversary as a Mock Wedding we can do this as well for you. Just for your information, we would like to give you an approximate price which will be a minimum of USD 5000 for the arrangements as mentioned below. It can change according to your choice also.
1. Venue for the wedding
2. Horse, camels, elephant
3. Fire works
4. Buffet Dinner
5. Brass Band
6. Mandap [ The place which is used for rituals at Bride’s place ]
7. Pandit [ The Hindu priest for rituals ]

We can arrange this for one couple with 50 invitees, if you want to come alone we will invite guests on your behalf who will be a witness for your marriage as well.


By the way, the reason that I was looking for a picture of a bridegroom on horseback in the first place is that I suddenly envisioned myself painting a long picture of a wedding procession, with the bridegroom, the marriage band tootling off-key but with great spirit, the guests and family members dancing. Not that I'm likely to accomplish it, but I had made some sketches earlier, when a baraat (wedding procession) passed our house -- of the bridegroom, a wedding guest, and musicians from the band:









Waziristan?

I saw it on Wide Island, who/which in turn found it on Registan.net, a blog about Central Asia: a news item in the Paktribune on 19 January, with the headline: 90 militants killed in S Waziristan clashes Big offensive on the cards; warplanes target hideouts. The story is straightforward, but the map of Waziristan which accompanies the article


looks suspiciously like another place altogether.

Blather

From an article by Louis Menand, on diaries, in the December New Yorker:
... If it doesn't contain a lot of dross, it's not a diary. It's something else -- a journal, or a writer's notebook, or a blog (blather is not the same as dross).

Sigh. (The sigh is the blather.)