Two weeks before Purti Pareek and Amit Persaud’s wedding in Rajasthan, war and conflict scrambled travel plans for guests flying in from around the world. Flights were cancelled, routes reworked and arrival times shifted by the hour. Oddly enough, many of their 100 guests reached India before they did. By the time they arrived, others already settled into the cadence of the weekend–some on sunrise tiger safaris in Ranthambore, others driving in from Jaipur with Laxmi Mishtan Bhandar (LMB) snacks in tow. “By the time we got there, everyone had already had their version of it,” says Pareek–tiger sightings, kachoris and the rest.
For Pareek, who grew up in Queens with deep familial roots in Jaipur, Rajasthan was is where grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins lived and childhood summers were measured in visits and meals. For Persaud, whose family is Indo-Guyanese, the journey carried a different charge–South Asian culture was present through food, music, stories and ritual but never India itself, before he and Pareek travelled together in late 2024 to visit wedding venues. “Bringing our family to Fort Barwara felt like a long-awaited return across lineages,” he shares.
The couple met in New York after being introduced by a mutual friend. Pareek, an appellate litigator, was preparing to leave for law school and, by her own account, did not initially register the occasion as fate. “If I’m being honest, our first two dates were fairly ordinary,” she says. Persaud remembers it differently. On their first date, he instinctively reached out to shake her hand and Pareek hugged him instead. “It was a small thing but it immediately caught me off guard,” he says. “There was a warmth and confidence about her that felt different from anyone I had met before.”
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