Then there were the goats. I laughed at the sight of a smart herd enjoying the shade of Krishna's Butterball in Mahaballipuram, and abruptly burst into tears another afternoon on the drive home from Kanchipuram when one ran out on the road and was hit by a truck before my eyes. On a night stroll along Marina Beach, on one of the days when the boyfriend made an appearance, I was fascinated by all the cellophane wrappers from cigarette packs blowing across the sand, until I realized they were actually small, almost transparent, crabs skittering past.

The boyfriend was caught up with many family visits though I figured we'd eventually meet up at the various wedding activities. He collected me one afternoon, and I was puzzled as I walked into the bride's home for the mehndi party, and she said "We thought you were in Sri Lanka!" This is apparently what she had been told, inexplicably, by the boyfriend. I laughed off the misunderstanding, though I realized he had done this hoping they'd drop all thoughts of me being at their wedding. In the end, he must have realized the folly of that plan, or maybe he actually felt guilty, but perhaps it would have been just as well if I'd been absent.

Not because a South Indian wedding is more solemn and less boisterous than unions up North, but because of the sensation I experienced arriving at a dinner reception one evening with him. It was like that moment in a movie where there's a scratch on a vinyl record and the music stops. As we walked in together, though there was no overt display of our being a couple, to judge by the frosty looks of disapproval from the women, people deducted that easily enough.

The next day, at the early morning ceremony out at the groom's parents' beach-facing villa on the East Coast Road, I was mortified to discover the boyfriend's blanket directive of 'It'll just be casual' might have applied to the men, but definitely not to the women, who were all silk and swish. I slunk into my chair, feeling simultaneously dowdy and conspicuous in khakis and a pink and beige shirt. I sat mutely next to the man who had morphed into a total stranger, barely hearing the pandit chanting before the happy couple. I wondered if I'd gotten in over my head, trying to understand how, short of schizophrenia, someone could be one person in one country, and someone so different 10,000 miles later.

Since then, I've fallen in love with the size and anonymity of filmi Mumbai and that is my de facto port of call on yearly visits to India. But I'll never forget the less frenetic pace of the Coromandel Coast, and the blinding bling of gold shops at Panagal Park. I still keep up on the latest Tamil films, songs and gossip, and was thrilled this summer when my satellite provider left the access to Vijay TV open for a week.

After a two-year absence I plan to visit this winter, to finally get that Tanjore painting I've always wanted, and to meet up with friends I've made on my own in the years since that maiden voyage.

Maria Giovanna writes about Hindi movies, old and new, at Filmiholic.com

Image: A common sight -- tourists and hawkers on the streets of India
Photograph: Manpreet-Romana/AFP/Getty Images