Hello ...

I was in Indore last week. I was promised that I would witness a traditional, lavish Marwari wedding by my now ex-roommate. He didn't fail in his promise and the whole affair was delightlfully wonderful.

A tradition during such weddings is that the groom rides to the wedding venue on a horse. The people in the procession dance to songs played by a live band that walks along. Such bands are not particulary noted for their musical verstality or even capability. Their only job is to play songs from Hindi films that they feel might appeal to the people in the procession. In their minds the lyrics to a song don't hold as much importance as the beats of the song. In short, they are more concerned with the "danceablity" of a given song.

This leads to some very odd choices; the most glaringly out of place one being "Mere desh ki dharti" (The land of my country), a patriotic song from a very old Hindi movie.

However, this post is about the most unique use of the word "Hello" that I have heard in my life. The vocalist in the band continuously used "Hello" as a way of indicating that he was now going to start singing a different song. Here is how it went,

Mere desh ki dharti ... song ugle, ugle heere moti, mere desh ki dharti ... Hello...
Tera saraafaa kaisa hai humdum, kaise chamke dhoop mein shabnam ... Hello...
Rang buredi, rang rangili chail chabili naar, .... mauja hi mauja ... Hello...

An addition to the English language: Hello as a punctuation mark.

Till later, Hello ...