Marriages or Status show?

MARRIAGES, MADE IN HEAVEN?

Marriages have always fascinated me, although I end up being alone and the food items are the only thing I know in that whole wedding. I am as good as a wedding crasher for food! Days and months are spent for the wedding day to be made perfect. Everyone wants their once in a life time moment to be as big and special as it can get. The couple and their families get super anxious and feel it should be grand celebration and joy with nothing to be spared. Consisting of a various traditions and rituals along with events complied with chaos. There are so many things to look after; recently people hire the wedding planners who are the professionals to handle their wedding preparations so as to get this day personally customized and all set like they want it to be. In Indian weddings, lot of money, gold and expensive gifts are given, as a tradition from the bride’s family to the groom. It is now more than the ‘Saat Feras’ or the seven vows.

It is a pompous affair, plots or marriage halls along with a caterer are booked. You can judge how big the wedding is by the venue and the name of the caterer. The budget usually starts from a few lakhs for a modest wedding to ‘crores’ for a night of splurge and extravagance. Women in the most expensive ‘saris’ embroidered with fancy and over shinning ‘zari’ and heavily clad with gold from neck to hand, sporting a heavy and over-powering makeup by some beautician, kids are never comfortable with their clothes they always end up fidgeting, crying and dirty by the time the wedding is over, not their favorite part because they don’t get attention, feeling left out because the rest of the family is going head over the heels trying to set everything right. Men in suits and ‘sherwanis’, welcoming everyone and a smile to show how happy they are to see the guest at the wedding. Food, now that’s my favorite section, which is pretty wide and multi cuisine spread. A few asking for extra cheese on their grill sandwich piece or the pizza slice, old men usually clad in dhotis and kurta pajamas gossiping with other old men, nostalgia bred. It’s that day when all the relatives and friends get together.

The bride and the bridegroom dressed by a designer with a face makeover usually arrive by evening with a local band playing in front and accompanied by siblings, cousins and close friends. Devouring all the attention while they take a walk from the entrance till the podium where a metallic heart shape seat is kept for them. The podium is well designed by the decorator with flowers and the red carpet rolled all over. The photographers and videographers constantly trying to cover up everything they could, capture as many moments and clicking every guest who comes up on the podium to congratulate the couple.

Marriages now-a-days are so much of a fanfare and so loud. It is no more makes you feel the sacredness where two souls commit to each other, holistic and spiritual meaning has changed. It is like a competition, a run for prestige and pride. Another way to show off, both money and status, which is why it has become materialistic and consumerism riddled and so the grace of it is lost. Let it not be a showy or pretentious display but a meaningful and joyous celebration of the promise by two human beings to be with each other forever and a start of a new chapter to their life.