The Big Fat Indian Wedding

 It's easy to scoff at it; but if you play it right, it can be great fun!

I know that it is fashionable among certain quarters to scoff at The Big Fat Wedding. So many functions, so many outfit changes, so much jewellery, and so many kinds of cuisines laid on for the delectation of the guests. Not to mention that it costs so much money — the kind that many people can’t afford and go bankrupt as they pretend that they do. 

All of this is probably true but if you are attending as a guest there is also so much fun to be had. I particularly enjoy people watching, gawking at the outfits and jewels on display, marvelling at the inventive decor, and of course, stuffing my face at the buffet tables.

But much as I enjoy playing dress up and attending weddings there is no denying that they can be a tiring business even if you are not the bride or groom (or the immediate family). So, as the wedding season looms large, here are some tips on how to survive it without losing your mind, wrecking your body and emptying your bank balance. 

• Choose your invitations wisely. If a wedding has four or five functions there is no obligation to attend each and every one (unless the wedding is hosted by very close family). So pick a function or two where the guest list is smaller than the others — think mehendi rather than reception — and make your appearance there. Trust me, the hosts won’t even notice your absence at an event where they have invited thousands. 

• Don’t be afraid to recycle your outfits. Just because you remember that you wore that lengha to your first cousin’s wedding three years ago doesn’t mean that anyone else does. In fact, you would be surprised how little people remember of what you wore to weddings over the years. So, don’t be shy to re-wear your favourite outfits. And that goes for jewellery as well. 

• If you must have new outfits then the environmentally sound choice is, of course, to rent rather than buy. This trend has taken off in the West but it is still to establish itself properly in India. But there are some rental sites that you can use. Try their services in advance to make sure they won’t let down on the nights in question. 

• If renting doesn’t ring your bell, then form a little group with your girlfriends and cousins who are roughly the same size and have the same taste. And when your wedding invites don’t overlap you can borrow each other’s stuff and go forth in completely new outfits and jewellery at zero cost with nobody being any the wiser. 

• Invest in a pair of comfortable platform shoes with not too high a heel. This is a crucial purchase that will take you through the wedding season without wrecking your knees and back. And as a bonus, you will be able to dance the night away with no pain. 

• And — I can’t stress this enough — eat a small, healthy snack before you head out to join the festivities. Not only is it a bad idea to drink on an empty stomach, it will also make it easy to resist the temptation of all those deep-fried canapés!

The Big Fat Indian Wedding

Is it time to slim it down to more manageable proportions?

We are all familiar with the Big Fat Indian Wedding. We’ve attended gazillions of them in the course of our lifetimes. We have gorged on the multi-cuisine buffets. We have danced to the tunes played by a ‘celebrity DJ’. We have goggled at the bride’s jewellery. We have gawked at the over-the-top decorations. Hell, some of us have probably even played a starring role in one of these extravagant odes to wealth and conspicuous consumption.

But we may not be able to do any of this for much longer if Congress MP, Ranjeet Ranjan (wife of the controversial Bihar politician, Pappu Yadav) has anything to do with it. Ranjan has introduced a private member’s bill in the Lok Sabha – Marriages (Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wasteful Expenditure) Bill -- that seeks to limit the number of guests invited to weddings and the menu served to them. The Bill also proposes that anybody who is spending more than Rs 5 lakh on a wedding should declare this in advance to the government and contribute a tenth of that amount to a fund set up to help poorer family host weddings.

Asked about the rationale behind introducing this Bill, Ranjan explained, “These days, weddings are more about showing off your wealth and, as a result, poor families are under tremendous pressure to spend more. This needs to be checked as it is not good for society at large.”

Well, she has a point there. The competitive spending on weddings has bankrupted many a middle class family and pushed poorer ones into debt. And yes, people do spend more than they can afford on weddings in an effort to keep up with (and to impress) their friends, neighbours and extended families.

But is a Bill – which will, most likely, never get passed, even if comes up for discussion in the next session of Parliament – really an answer? Can you really have a legal solution to what is essentially a societal problem? Does the government really have a right to legislate on how and where we spend our hard-earned, tax-paid money? And do adults really need a nanny-state to decide how they should celebrate their weddings?

As far as I am concerned, the answer to all of above questions is a resounding no.

That said, I think we all have to admit that the Big Fat Indian Wedding is getting out of control. Yes, it is a multi-billion rupee industry which creates many jobs and is a major driver of the economy, especially the luxury sector. But sometimes this growth comes at the expense of ordinary hard working folk, who drain the savings of a lifetime to celebrate one day. And that makes no sense at all.

So, how do we encourage people to spend less on extravagant weddings, without trying to corral them in by some intrusive law or the other? Well, I guess we could start with Hindi films, which have done the most to popularize large, expensive weddings in their song-and-dance Bollywood extravaganzas. If we could have a little less of the opulence of Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! and a few more homespun Monsoon Weddings, perhaps young couples would learn to value intimate, home-style celebrations over gaudy displays of wealth.

Or we could take our cues from two communities who know how to keep their wedding madness under control. The first are the Parsis, who go to the same wedding caterer to order basically the same set meal, so nobody feels obliged to do any more. (And their guests, who know down to a rupee how much the meal costs, give an envelope containing the same amount to the bride and groom, so nobody is out of pocket.) And the second are the Sikhs, who organize their weddings in the neighbourhood gurudwara, serve a simple vegetarian meal and the most delicious kada-prasad, and are home and dry before the sun sets.

But while you can keep the expense down with a bit of effort, how do you cut down on guest lists without offending extended families, business contacts, office colleagues and prickly neighbours? It’s tough because everyone expects an invitation no matter how nodding your acquaintance and takes mortal offence when the card doesn’t turn up.

Well, there is one solution, though it’s not exactly cheap. You could go with the two words that strike terror in the heart of the father of the bride: destination wedding. But while this will push up the expense of housing and feeding guests, the upside is that you can keep the guest list to a closed circle of people who actually matter to you (and who don’t mind paying for their tickets to your destination of choice). And if you keep things light and casual – like a beach wedding, for example – your expense on décor will be minimal.

Of course, you could always do one better and simply elope with the love of your life. Tell your parents to throw one joint party for your reception when you return. And ask them to put the money they would have spent on your Big Fat Indian Wedding on a down payment on a Small Slim Indian Apartment that you can live in Happy Ever After.