There were 30,000 weddings on a single day in Delhi last week. Many of them, it seemed, took place right outside my apartment. Now, when I say ‘weddings’, I don’t mean a sedate spiritual affair where the couple tip toe around hot coals and have lovely, calm, gift-offering ceremonies. I mean the wedding reception where everyone gets drunk and plays unbelievably loud Indian pop music out of sub- standard speakers well into the night. “Got any Chris de Burgh?” I feel like screaming.

But there is no such thing as a slow dance in India. If I could do an audio transfer of what it sounds like in my bedroom right now, you’d probably ask one of two questions. How can you stand it? or Why don’t you go down and join them? The answer to the first question is, I sometimes wonder. I’ll address the second question with the following–an article in the Times of India that I’m expecting to read tomorrow morning.

AMERICAN WOMAN CRASHES WEDDING: ‘UNHAPPY’ COUPLE MAKE FORMAL COMPLAINT TO EMBASSY

An American woman invited herself to a wedding reception in Katwaria Sarai on Friday, locals reported. “She wasn’t hard to spot,” said Sanjay Das, a 28 year old fitness trainer, “she was pretty white.” The woman, who is yet to be named by police, apparently lives in the neighborhood. “She drank all the Kingfisher Ultra” complained Nitin, a cousin of the groom. “We’d reserved that for our VVIP guests.” But having a few drinks uninvited at the party wasn’t the problem. It was when she started dancing that the guests got peeved. “It was not good,” says Dipti, the unhappy bride. “She had no rhythm at all. It made me feel queasy just watching her.” Sandeep, her new hubby agrees. “At first I thought she was a nice lady. She even offered to take over from the DJ who had mysteriously disappeared. But then she began throwing pakoras at the music speakers. My grandmother had made those with her own hands from an old family recipe. We were completely bamboozled.” The unnamed woman was not available for comment. “We’re taking this case seriously” SP officer Jaswant Singh told TOI. “We have 5 million more weddings in the capital in the next month alone. We have to be vigilant about this kind of infiltration by foreigners.”