Strangers or friends?

 Of late I'm reading up interesting inspiring or odd stories in the news.  I never liked politics - never do! So I gladly skip the political section.  But the odd bits that occasionally pop up in mainstream media about unusual or heartwarming stories, I gladly read.  

One such was this one on BBC: The wedding crasher mystery solved after four years

It is a story of a young couple, reviewing the photos of their wedding, come across a stranger in attendance. Being a close knit event with family and friends only invited for the occasion, they couldn't identify the man.  The bride particularly felt she needed to uncover his identity and after four years did manage to discover that the man attending their wedding was a total stranger; but accidentally at their wedding, instead of another wedding happening at a nearby venue.  This man was given the wrong address and realised that he was at the wrong venue, only on seeing the bride - the only person whom he knew in the intended wedding he wished to be present!  

As I read this story, I couldn't but laugh.  In Scotland - as it would be in most of Europe, I guess - weddings and such events are attended only by invitation, that too very selected few. To find a stranger would mean they are wedding crashers!  And just like in this story, easy to identify, as 'not invited' - though may be difficult to identify them in real life.  But in India, if one were to even try to identify all those who attend a wedding, a lifetime would be totally inadequate even to mark someone as a wedding crasher!  Not to mention anything about actual wedding crashers. 

First of all our families and friends circle are so big and wide, any new face could very well be a first cousin or the better half of my best friend! So when one invites someone close to oneself for an event, that invited person inviting another one or two or more is not taken offence at or unexpected.  The more the merrier is the mantra!  In such a scenario, total strangers are also welcome!  That's the other aspect of celebrations in India - everyone is welcome!  Very rarely is a guest thrown out, merely because he or she is a stranger or he or she hasn't been invited. On the contrary, strangers becoming friends at such events is not uncommon!! Such is the adventurous life in India!