INDIA: Police enforced special laws banning crowds, imposing traffic restrictions and deploying additional personnel across India's capital New Delhi yesterday.
The measures were instituted to cope with a record 12,000 weddings and the accompanying marriage processions led by ornately dressed grooms astride white stallions.
City municipal officials estimate that about 500,0000 people attended festivities on the day Hindu priests decreed the most propitious for marriages this year.
"All major planets like Saturn and Jupiter alongside the new moon are suitably configured to make November 27th the most auspicious day for weddings," said astrologer Pankaj Khanna. Couples married on this day are guaranteed happiness by the gods, he added.
Frolicking crowds, gyrating to the latest Punjabi pop songs being belted out by raucous bands, danced their way to thousands of wedding dinners and marriage ceremonies led by elaborately turbaned grooms, carrying swords and riding caparisoned snow white mares, symbols that signify virility.
Richer grooms opted for mare-drawn carriages and even a string of elephants as they weaved their way to the wedding venue. This is traditionally hosted by the bride's family either at home or in clubs, hotels, municipal halls or in massive tents rigged up to resemble palaces that take scores of workers many days to assemble.
At several such locations groups of males, crowded surreptitiously around parked cars that doubled as mobile bars. The Government, anticipating trouble at upcoming local elections in Delhi, had closed down all liquor outlets in the city.
"Getting a drink in the parking lot is like being in a scrum," said Mr Kamal Kapoor, a Los Angeles restaurant owner in Delhi to attend a family wedding. It's a madhouse, but great fun, he added, victoriously clutching his drink.
"It's chaos on the streets," said socialite Ms Rita Paul, caught in a traffic jam for over an hour as several wedding parties meandered past. The city seems to have gone crazy, she said resignedly.
Hindu weddings are an elaborate affair spanning several days of feasting and revelry that culminate in the groom arriving at the head of a dancing party of normally tipsy relatives and friends.
After being formally greeted by the bride's family, the couple are married in a ceremony presided over by a Brahmin priest chanting Sanskrit hymns and mantras in front of the sacred fire, lasting many hours.
The unprecedented number of weddings is a bonanza for all those connected with the ritual. Five-star hotels and other venues were booked months in advance while priests were in short supply, forcing many families to turn to novitiates to perform the wedding rituals.
Florists charged exorbitant rates and beauty parlours hired extra staff to ready brides. Horse contractors doubled their tariff before galloping furiously to the next venue.
Municipal officials said Delhi would witness over 27,000 marriages this month alone and traffic restrictions would remain in place at important intersections around the city until next January when the period favourable for weddings ends with the Hindu gods retiring to their slumbers.