The hullabaloo of a wedding party is hard to miss on a Friday morning in Khopivali village of Murbad's Thane district. Located 90 km from Mumbai, the village sits below a mountain scape that boasts of a peaking hill. The village is drowning, albeit in the din of blaring speakers. A senior is singing a folk song that the local Agri community reserves only for celebrations like today: "Navri la zalia ghae, tila kondun thevli malyavar (The bride is in a hurry to get married, we have locked her on the mezzanine)," she shrills. A group of children strut around with faces smeared with haldi paste, make their way to the road and dance, not to the drone of her vocals, but Cho gada tara, Chabila tara, O re rangeela tara, blaring from a television in one of the homes that lines the street.

Vilas Dattatray Karale, 29, pulls out a wedding card from the an envelope. "She is lucky that she is a woman," he says of the bride, whom he addresses as his sister. "Only they find partners easily."