We got to the roof and the tables were set with table clothes and flower petals scattered across the tabletops. In the corner sat some musicians and dancers in elaborately decorated dresses. Azim Ji announced that the hotel proprietor, a very nice man whose teenage son was with him because he is blind, would give us a brief history of the city and then we would see some traditional Rajasthani dances. Abid Ji and Goutam Ji had also gotten beer for all of us (with a two beer limit per person) and dinner included macaroni and cheese.
The dancers were elegant and talented, and one dance involved a woman stacking nine pots on her head and then stomping on glass and balancing on the edges of a bowl. It was awesome. The three main dancers also did a number with fire on their heads, and another woman did a back bend blindfolded to pick up money that someone had placed on the ground with her mouth. We then all got up and they showed us various dance moves, some of which were hard and some of which seemed to just involve spinning around as fast as you could and running into everyone else. Then we had a bit of an impromptu dance party with our program staff, and we sat down for dinner and drinks. The beer (Kingfisher, the number one selling Indian beer worldwide apparently), it turns out, was in 650-mL bottles, which is about 22 oz, so no one was too upset about the two beer limit because it was actually more like a four beer limit, if you were drinking regularly sized bottles.
The macaroni and cheese had a lot more sauce than macaroni, and it was weirdly sweet, so that was a little bit of a bust. There was some delicious chicken, though, and this peanut dish that tasted so good! We were all really happy and enjoying ourselves. We danced some more, and (typical American college students of course) managed to take pictures that make the party look much wilder than it actually was. Maybe it's our subconscious way of telling future employers via Facebook pictures that we're not ready for the real world yet? Our teachers were there the whole time, so things didn't get out of hand, and we generally had a wonderful time hanging out on the roof and acting like ourselves (not that the alcohol did that, more that we just didn't have to deal with stresses of being out in the city and interacting with people who don't always understand us).
Oh also, it's currently the nine-night Hindu Navratri festival, which celebrates Shakti (which Wikipedia tells me is a "primordial cosmic energy") and dancing and festivities. It started while we were in Udaipur and there were tinsel decorations and lights up, under which people dance and celebrate at night. We were told to be wary of going because students have had bad experiences in the past of not feeling safe. Apparently it's the equivalent of one big orgy? I think this is an exaggeration but I didn't spend enough time at the festivities to find out.
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