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Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Sanctity of Marriage and Wastage at Weddings






















Matrimonial market mockery goes on endlessly with mad demands, expectations and massive wastage. 

The food that is wasted in Indian wedding can feed all the hungry children in India. 

The money that gets wasted in Indian weddings to show off pomp is a huge unproductive useless industry not exactly quantified but by all estimates and guesstimates could be equivalent to our budget on military equipment.


All nubile folks and parents please think over and instead of wastages invest that amount on behalf of the couple in any way you want with a very small simple ceremony of only family members, if you are particular about the ritualistic/religious aspects.

Whatever I write may hurt some, I wish it were many but my attempt is to drive home certain facts.
In olden days, I was told, marriages used to be for almost a week and they involved lot of things like social get together, occasion to entertain cultural activities like many kutcheris [concerts], lot of festivity and faithful following of many traditions and rituals [ I am not debating whether they were all necessary or useful or meaningful or for that matter who am I to question about a cultural activity which took place when I was not even born].


Gradually we saw viewing these as a manifestation of pomp and pride and started competing with each other in that grand show.

As a result too many things have been added to the list of modern day wedding that the whole show is devoid of any sincerity on any factor.

Almost everything is carried in a very robotic and ritualistic manner.

Now a new trend has started that while giving the wedding invitation they give you some unusable gift item.

They have become like Indian movie where the hero planning to kill the villain will go on for 40 minutes because in the meantime the hero will have a dream song on his lover while the villain will be enjoying with a glass of some liquor, preferably in a pub or near a swimming pool, a dance by some semi clad person.

We never get tired of these meaningless stereotypes with all their hypes.

We hardly realize that in doing all these tamasha we are not only wasting lot of hard earned money we are also exposing our total lack of sincerity in anything we do.

Yes almost to all marriage receptions , especially in the metros, we know we need at least 30 minutes to drive and we are also aware that the couple will be arriving late from the beauty parlors/hairdressers.

We go stand in queue to wish the couple and present them something and pose for a photo, then queue up for food where we waste at least 50% of what is served or hardly eat anything of what is displayed there and again queue up for the remaining nonsense the Tambulam bag where in a very small coconut is packed that is so small that you can never break anywhere unless you make Bret Lee throw it against a huge rock and if at all you manage to break somehow you can never take out the kernel by any means.


We can actually change the proverb in Tamil from Nai petra thenampazham to Tambulam thandha thena pazham at least the dog will play with that.

I felt the utter disgust of these things way back in 1979, when I attended a wedding with my mother.

I wrote the following then an attempted verse totally affected and bombastic in style but I think the content holds good.



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