It’s the big fat Indian wedding season and you’ve probably witnessed too many by now. If not, you must have seen many baaraats on the street which are not too easy to ignore. Huge processions with band baaja and many people dancing to their tunes are what Indian baaraats look and sound like. In these processions you’ll find a variety of people. Here’s the types of people in a baaraat –
1. Dancers
Straight on the streets from the sets of Dancing With The Stars, these baaraatis are the ones who display all sorts of performances to the tunes of the band. They don’t care who all are watching them or whether aunties are going to judge them by the way they look. They’re here to set the floor (here streets) on fire and they get down to business immediately. With the shy ones it takes at least two songs to get them to dancing, but once they’re in the mood, there’s no stopping them. The intensity of dance is so high that if they were to jam into vehicles, the vehicle would get destroyed within seconds.
2. Confused Aunties
Every baaraat has a group of aunties who don’t know what is going on. Their kids are out of control doing naagin dance ahead, their husbands are managing the street traffic and they don’t know their purpose in the baaraat. At first you’ll see them together wondering what to do. Gradually, the dancers start pulling them to dance and they’re resistant. They don’t want to spoil their makeup and saris by dancing like hooligans. After four to five consecutive wooing sessions by the kids, they give in to the pressure and let all loose. They get hyperactive and start dancing like nobody’s watching them, quite literally. It takes more than five people to tell them that the baaraat has reached it’s destination. You awoke the animal, you pay.
3. Traffic Police Uncles
While there’s absolute madness going on within the baaraat, they are the real heroes. You know how every other week the roads are all dug up for no rhyme or reason? There’s already so much traffic on the roads and upon that, the wedding season begins to make it difficult to drive around the city. While the real traffic police isn’t really available during the evening, these uncles take the task upon their shoulders and control the traffic. They keep the dancers, confused aunties and everyone else in check while making space for cars to move. They are the unsung heroes of the baaraat. Thank for being there, you guys.
4. Carefree Children
This is the case with every celebration that happens in our country or anywhere in the world. At every event, there will be a bunch of kids walking around homeless but they don’t really care about it much. In a baaraat, you’ll see them taking small snack breaks in every street they cross because they’re parents are busy with other things. Let me tell you that such opportunities that kids live for. The only reason they agree for going to marriages are food and wandering. They see this as another one of their travel expeditions. Some kids also take part in dancing but as their attention span is limited, you won’t be seeing them doing one thing for a long time.
5. Scandalized Dulha
Amidst all these people doing various kinds of things, you’ll see the the Dulha all calm and composed. You may think he’s got it all together but really, he’s just scared to death. Sitting in the car he’s contemplating all his bachelorhood, his decisions, his exes and all his mistakes. All these people acting crazy around him aren’t really helping his anxiety. The only thing that’s keeping him together is the promise of scrumptious food that they’ll be getting at their own marriage. They are scandalized most of the time, and upon that they have to watch people dancing weirdly.
Band Baaja Baaraat.
