June 11, 2011

Indian Weddings of today

Indian weddings often conjures up images of days of gaiety as a run up to the wedding day, and post wedding, there are a series of formal exchanges and luncheons and such niceties. Depending on budgets, the weddings get longer and grander but has a common thread of laughter, fun, music, dance and poignant moments all thrown in!! This is how most typical traditional weddings were!

But with current fast paced lifestyles, its often not an enjoyable experience. Also, personally, I think weddings are a huge waste of time and money. Its over rated and most families look at it as an expense that they wish can be avoided, but they finally end up outdoing their relatives and friends:-). And so it continues, generation after generation with some modernity added too!! Nobody wants to break the tradition with weddings, although there are a few sensible couples who go in for a temple wedding or a simple civil wedding followed by a feast for friends and family.

Often, much time and energy is lost in planning the logistics and shopping and food for the guests that the brides' and groom's parents are a bundle of nerves and finally fall ill, out of sheer exhaustion. Their ill health prevents them, often from enjoying their own plans for the wedding:-). Weddings these days are used as occasions to prove a point or two to our peers and family! Guests, often, get stressed out at weddings, they need to leave from work early, buy gifts, dress up and drive in heavy traffic, all to participate at weddings, where they yawn for a while, make boring polite conversation with faint acquaintances and eat food that's often not to their taste:). Everyone, from the hosts to the guests seem to be mighty compelled to go this ritual grudgingly and silently! 

High profile weddings have celebrities drop by, they do a small jig (get paid for it handsomely, ofcourse). The recent talk of the town is somebody's wedding where the 3 Khans of Bollywood are expected to arrive but they will give their timings well in advance in order to ensure none of the three bump into each other!! Ah well, good old weddings were always a place to make amends and let bygones be bygones... But no, we have the media and the organizers bending backwards to ensure the 3 Khans don't meet at this wedding!! We have complicated weddings so much so that we now engage a Wedding Planner to take care of arrangements and food, so the hosts can take care of the guests:). And then we have these hi-fi corporate weddings, where the close family and office colleagues are invited with security swipe cards, to ensure there are no gatecrashers! Boring weddings:-).

Nett nett, we still continue to spend obscene amounts of money at weddings, however modern it maybe. 

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