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.
No comments:
Post a Comment