Big fat weddings don’t mean a happy marriage
MY family and I have been busy attending the wedding receptions of our relatives and friends over the past few weeks. I have noticed that it has become a trend among Indians to feature glamorous Kollywood and Bollywood themes for their receptions, with professional dancers and deejays hired to perform for the occasion.
Among the wedding guests, there were bejewelled women dressed in beautiful and expensive saris while the men wore elegant suits or jippa.
The bride would be decked in an elaborate designer lehenga and shimmery gold jewellery. Assisted by her entourage and chased by an army of photographers and videographers, she would walk up a few steps to an embellished love seat.
The groom would join her soon after, and the rest of the reception would be a show of extravagance, gluttony and vanity.
After attending a few of these ostentatious wedding receptions, I began to wonder what had hap- pened to the simple yet graceful gatherings we used to have in the past.
As Indians, we have always been susceptible to extravagance at weddings but I feel this overindulgence has reached dizzying heights now. I have attended many wedding receptions where splurging and the ostentatious displays of jewellery and gifts appear to be the primary objective of the week-long gathering instead of the sacred union of two human beings.
This disturbing trend is really the symptom of a larger problem – unbridled consumerism and shallow, materialistic aspirations – sweeping across our country. Switch on your TV or cellphone or open the newspaper or Facebook and you’ll be overwhelmed by a barrage of advertisements pushing products at you.
Instead of embracing prudence and fiscal responsibility after decades of credit-infused excesses that have resulted in financial difficulties, we seem to be intent on taking the opposite path.
Some families even take a loan from loan sharks which can put them, especially the lower or middle class Indians in financial distress.
Today, the most important gifts that parents can present to their children are a solid education and self-esteem which will help them to continue their life’s journey in a disciplined manner.
So, unless they are loaded like Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, Indian families need to carefully consider how much they want to spend for their wedding.