Sangeet Ceremony
- navakallc
- Jan 13
- 3 min read
I’m only 16, but I’ve been to a fair share of weddings ever since I was a little girl. Weddings feel like a whole new world to me, when two individual people move from “I” to a “We”. It’s the commemoration of two souls joining together, and the event and the ceremony are both touching. I always love a good event, a get together where I am able to meet so many of my relatives after such a long time, but weddings are even more special because there’s cause for a celebration.
Each aspect of the wedding has its own unique traits, especially the main ceremony itself of course. The very first event that we attended for a wedding I went to recently was the Sangeet. The Sangeet is when relatives and friends, or any guest in general have performances and sing and dance for the bride and groom. It’s the first step towards their celebration and since dance is such a big part of our culture, it is commemorated through that.
I had planned my dance months in advance, imagining myself dancing on stage in front of my family and relatives and new people I would come to be friends with at the wedding. I adore celebrations, especially when it comes to enjoying with my family. So I started brainstorming all the dances I could do, and the songs I wanted to dance on. The list boiled down to about 10, which was wayyy too many, even for a dance addicted person like me. So, I settled for 4 in the end, 2 with my solo and 2 with my cousins.
It was fun to pick out a choreography and learn the dance in the small 5 minute breaks I took between studying, and for 20 minutes before I went to bed. Like that, I had my dances ready to go a week before I left for India. Whenever I used to put the songs on in the car, I would always run through the steps, imagining that I was on the stage at the Sangeet, with countless familiar faces staring back at me.
The day finally arrived. That’s when my cousin and I realized that we’ve been obsessing over the dances for way too long without actually practicing. So we went to the lawn and locked in. We were there for 3, almost 4 hours, trying to get the choreography right to the very last beat. Laughing and joking around, we stumbled our way through it, until finally, we thought we had it down. We were also anchoring the show, and had absolutely no time to prep before it, so had a blast whispering about our next lines during an ongoing performance.
When it was finally time for our performance, we glanced at each other, smiling and giggling, a shiver going down our spines due to the excitement. On the stage, the perspective is completely different, with so many people looking at us with expectant expressions on their faces, ready for us to entertain them for the next three and a half minutes.
Smiling, we started, relaxing with the beat and grinning ear to ear as we vibrated with energy, setting the stage on fire. It was one of the more core memories I share with my cousins, one that we’ll look back on for a lifetime.
I absolutely love dancing, but it’s even more special when I get to not only share it with friends and family, but to get involved and participate in the dance with them. The practicing and joking around are always the best parts, the final performance the fruit of our hard work.