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Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

> volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding ... subservience

I don't know about you, but when I hear "working as a server at a wedding attended by many powerful people", I don't think "subservience", I think "unique opportunity to make connections, and to potentially snoop insider information."

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I am not sure you comprehend the fame and reach of the actors mentioned. They don’t need connections, they are super famous in their own right.

Also note, Amitabh is in his late seventies. I doubt he is interested in connections at his age.

You must not know of Amitabh and the Shahrukh -- they're not some smalltime actors that need to get a leg up. This would be like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt offering to be servers at Jeff Bezos' daughters wedding. It's absurdly subservient.

Do not ignore cultural differences. If you see such an activity as a job, then you would arrive at a conclusion like yours.

In India, it's common for hosts to serve food as a sign of respect to their guests. Close friends and family of hosts also join. This only showed the closeness of the relationships among Mukesh and other stars. Seeing it as a subservient act isn't accurate, no big star would sign up if it were so.

To give another example, often times, the servers for these weddings aren't people you pay but rather your close friends and family.

This is correct. I'm not Indian but my wife is and I've observed it many times as an insider "outsider".

Subservient isn't the right word I think. A lot of rich and famous attended the Ambani wedding events – Clinton, Huffington etc and a lot of celebrities from world over.

Beyonce did a show too. So did a lot of Bollywood celebrities. These celebrities do paid gigs at these ultra rich wedding parties.

https://www.wmagazine.com/story/isha-ambani-wedding-india-hi...

Attending an event as a guest is very, very different than attending an event as a server...

Serving in many Indian weddings can be done by friends and family. It's like showing that you're very close to the family.

Not too long ago, it used to be that family and friends would get together to cook for the wedding.

Not really, people whose status is beyond question can do stuff like this just because they feel like it. I attended a high school play at a fancy private school in Texas and to my surprise the parking lot attendant was Michael Dell, who had a kid in the school. Nobody said “yuk yuk Dell is such a loser he worked the parking lot.”

Well said.

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