It is the much sought after wedding season in India and it has become sort of a regular feature these days for me to spend my evenings with friends or relatives at their happy celebrations while they embark on life's new journey. For the uninformed, let me make it clear from the beginning that marriages in India happen on auspicious dates as specified by the priests or pundits, as we call them. The marriage preparations begin well in advance of the actual day, starting from the day the parents decide that their son/daughter needs to tie the knot. Then starts the process of looking for the would-be partner, with the help of the long chain of cousins, uncles and aunts who give references of all the eligible people of marriageable age in the community.
During my stay at the University, whenever I used to introduce my wife to my friends, they would get amused at the prospect of having an arranged marriage. “Do people actually get married this way in India?” was always the question put to me and every time my answer would be “Yes, it still does happen like that in India”.
Indians have big joint families and it is quite common to find a suitable match through your aunts, sisters and cousins. In fact once you cross the threshold (or in a more dignified manner when you are on the other side of twenty five), you are tracked. You find people eyeing you during public functions and trying to observe your manners and habits. The very emotional and melodramatic mothers would even start imagining you as their son/daughter in law and start preparing the list of invitations for the betrothal ceremony.
The more modern ones nowadays have taken the e-route. They register with a wedding website, specify their height, weight, colour of eyes and even specify the preferred height, weight and eye colour of their partners and wow… the phones do not stop ringing after that. The offers start pouring in by the minute. After all, we have a 1.2 billion strong population in India and the large chunk of this comprises of young people – and these young turks have to get married…. at least the elders think so. Therefore, if you have a female companion and you want your companionship to be certified… get married! If you want to have children… the only way it is possible is… by getting married! If you do not want the neighbours and relatives to doubt your sexuality… get married! Therefore, you want this licence of marriage for anything and everything here. Now, please do not get me wrong! I personally am a strong believer in the institution of marriage. But, I despise that those who do not believe so are forced into believing this and this leads to a large number of divorces nowadays. I also love this concept of arranged marriage. There is nothing wrong with this. Two people meet and find soul mates in each other. Love grows and they become inseparable. How very romantic! But wait, this sounds good if two people want to choose this way of getting married and should never be forced just because they seem to be crossing the age limit defined by the so called uncles and aunts.
To avoid the risk of digressing from the topic and this post turning out to be a moral lecture, let me continue with the big, fat Indian wedding. So, once the groom / bride is decided, the families sit together and decide the auspicious wedding date. Indian weddings are a very lavish affair and are generally considered as a once in a lifetime celebration. So the families do not leave any stone unturned in the preparations and end up spending a fortune… all their savings on this one big day. Invitation cards are printed in bulk and sent to the long lists of friends and relatives. The venue is decided and booked well in advance otherwise you would not get any at a later date if it is the wedding season. A lavish menu is decided, more importantly the mithaiwalla – ie the person who prepares the sweets for the wedding. A wedding without sweets is unthinkable; all sorts of traditional fare is made and packed into boxes to be given to the guests. The bride gets to spend a fortune on her trousseau, which has to include a Benarasi Silk sari along with several other specialities from the different Indian states. The wedding itself includes several functions like the "sangeet", wherein the guests dance the night away. Then there is the "haldi" ceremony where both the bride and groom are smeared in turmeric to make their skin glow on their D day. The wedding lasts well into the night and the ceremonies continue till the wee hours of the morning. In India, a wedding in one’s family is a huge affair which is tiring as well as enjoyable at the same time!! The guests get to enjoy the gorgeous spread of food and choicest scotch but only at the expense of the bride and the groom, who are dead tired till all the ceremonies are over and desperately look forward to their honeymoon… if not for anything else… to get some rest!
Rohit
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