In the Minority

My friend Avani married her sweetie Ajay earlier this year in India. She then married him again Saturday afternoon. They then recreated another ceremony Saturday night for friends. At least, that's how I think it went down. I'm not sure, but I do know that I attended something Saturday night that resembled a wedding.

I've known Avani since high school when we were in chorus. She went to DC for college and we didn't keep in touch very often. She then took off for India and worked with orphans for two separate stints. Whilst helping children in Gujarat, she met Ajay in Ahmedabad. I'm pretty sure that's where she was volunteering and where she met him. I may have them switched around or completely wrong, but I think it's close. Avani came back home to Charlotte shortly after she met Ajay and said she met this guy who she'll likely marry and she did when she got back over there.
Way back in the day I went to Avani's parent's wedding anniversary party where they reaffirmed their vows and stuff. I remember being one of about six white people out of a couple hundred people. It was great. I remember the food being terrible, and sneaking out to the parking lot to smoke cigarettes. Oh, the memories. I also thought it was weird because they rented out a church building. So it made a lot of sense that Saturday's wedding took place at the Levine Jewish Senior Center! Anyway, it was beautiful. They had a non-denominational minister doing the ceremony which consisted of seven different steps. Kind of like seven different vows. It was cool.
I don't know much about Ajay except for he's one hell of a yoga instructor and artist. In fact, he and Avani did all of the decorations for the wedding. This is what you saw when you walked in the front door. There were decorations on every table, they even did the place mats. After the wedding was a big Indian buffet. Just to the right of the buffet was a table with spaghetti and meat sauce. I was tempted, but stayed on the Indian side and actually enjoyed all of the food. That's what spending the majority of the last four years with a vegetarian does to you.

It's great to see Avani happy. She's working for the North Carolina Minority Support Center in Durham where Ajay's in teaching yoga.
The first person I saw when I walked in was Sonia. I've known her since the 4th grade. She whipped my ass in the Spelling Bee one year. She's now a doctor, and I'm a news photographer. The summer after freshman year in college, Sonia and I hung out every night. We had a lot in common then. We both hated being back home, and were both smoked a LOT of cigarettes and were trying to hide it from our parents. So we'd go on walks or go get ice cream so we could smoke cigarettes. That was a good summer. She's finishing her residency in Birmingham and who knows where she'll go after that. It was good to see old friends Saturday. There's been a lot of good weddings this year.