by Ira Trivedi
The Designer has also diversified, adding wedding decoration, flowers and wedding invitations to his business. The wedding card, the first announcement of the wedding is a crucial element of the Indian wedding. The Designer explains thumb rules to me. Traditional mithai is considered gauche and out of fashion. Swiss or French chocolate is considered much more elegant and fashionable. A simple card is not enough; invitations, like the weddings, have to be big. They have to make a statement, and they always have to come accompanied by gifts.
I have seen some bizarre wedding invitations reach my doorstep. I once received a wedding invitation in the shape of a small castle; another came armed with a box of Armani Dolce; once I even got a small trunk, each drawer of which held various goodies, including candles, dates and brownies. Most invitations come heavily armed with gifts, sweets, incense, silver trinkets amongst other highly disposable paraphernalia. I recall the reaction of an astonished invitee speaking of a fantastical wedding invitation which came accompanied by a golden Tirupati statuette. The invite to the wedding itself must have cost 25,000.
The speed of economic growth in India, responsible for the creation of overnight fortunes, is also creating a conspicuous, yet almost desperate type of consumption at weddings. Excess is in order in all departments of the Indian wedding industry, estimated to be a staggering US$ 25.5 billion (1,42,596 crore)—the economy of a small country, with an annual 20-25 per cent growth rate.216 ‘The average middle-class family spends more than 7.4 lakhs on a wedding, four times India’s annual per capita GDP while expenses of a “good” wedding of a middle-class family is about 5 lakhs ($10,600), excluding jewellery’, but the average budget is usually 1.5 million.217 In Mumbai, a typical affluent family spends 60 to 70 lakh (not including jewellery and clothes) on a wedding. In Delhi, the figure is about twice as much.218 To put all of this into perspective, an average American wedding costs approximately US$ 26,327 (16 lakh).219 It is important to note that it is just not just Hindu weddings that are celebrated in this way, all weddings, even of faiths that have originated outside the subcontinent, such as Christianity or Islam, have Indian aspects to them, and differ quite dramatically from weddings in Islamic or Western countries. Most middle-class weddings across faiths will consist of a mehendi, a sangeet and a reception while the wedding ceremony itself will be different for each faith.
However, as more people choose partners of their own and have civil marriages, it is likely that a sizeable percentage of weddings in urban India, especially among working professionals will be smaller, more intimate affairs, celebrating the couple rather than their entire clans and communities.
But, for the moment, Indian weddings are celebrated as once-in-a-lifetime grandiose events. As one journalist correctly noted, ‘An over-the-top wedding is an opportunity to bring together all these people under one supersize tent and to celebrate the core values that define Indian society. It is an occasion for joy, not just for the bride and groom but for all 25,000 of their closest relatives and friends.’220
THE BIGGER, FATTER MASS WEDDING
As I was to discover, Indian weddings could get much bigger than I could have possibly imagined.
Amravati is an unspectacular town. It boasts the tumult characteristic of any Indian town—stentorian car horns vying for supremacy, two- and three-wheelers swerving between cows and people, derelict buildings, shanty storefronts and colourful signage. It is the sixth most populated town in the state of Maharashtra and is conspicuous perhaps only for the Amravati Municipal Corporation, the first Municipal Corporation in India to privatize octroi, an archaic tax which, as of 2012, is levied only in Ethiopia and in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
Here in Amravati, I am attending a free-for-all marriage ceremony where an estimated 3,720 couples will be wed. I stand in the middle of a large field, my feet squelching in the slushy earth of the wedding grounds created at the centre of the city. Thousands of people are here to participate, to view and to wed in what is touted to be the largest communal wedding in the history of the planet. Ravi Rana, the politician-organizer of the event, has declared that he is aiming to find a place for the mass marriage in the Guinness Book of World Records.
There is wholesale confusion as the usual shambolic state of affairs that is to be encountered at any Indian wedding is multiplied 3,270 times. Families flutter around brides and grooms, the young brides-to-be in vermilion wedding saris, and the grooms festooned with king-size headgear, dressed in gold and cream. I stand inert—lost, confused and feeling part of the chaos. I am jolted back to reality when I am almost run over by an oncoming tractor that gives a long annoyed blast of its horn and flashes its headlights at me.
The highlight and reason for this event is the marriage of Ravi Rana, the chief organizer of this event, an MLA who decided to organize the mass marriage on the occasion of his own marriage to the pretty South Indian actress Navaneet Kaur. The co-sponsor of the ceremony is Baba Ramdev, the yoga guru who rose to national fame by propagating innovative breathing techniques. The expense for this event is estimated to be around 10 to 12 crore, which works out to approximately 33,000 per couple. This includes a free wedding ceremony, a wedding feast open to the wedding parties and their families, and also gifts for the couple. For Rana, this is an astute political decision. There is nothing that touches an Indian heart like marriage, and he intends to capitalize on this.
The scene today in this unspectacular city is nothing less than spectacular. The Science Core grounds are huge and erected on them are hundreds of brightly coloured pandals where wedding ceremonies will take place. I peep inside one tent and see a long line of mud kunds. On either side of the kunds, grooms sit facing their brides who have all powdered their faces into white masks with bright red lipstick. Rana and Navaneet, the celebrity couple sit far away from the crowds, on a massive stage on which a giant mandap has been constructed. A host of celebratory figures are meant to come to the event, including top politicians, industrialists and Bollywood actors; red velvet sofas have been laid out for them.
I am lost in the mass of people. The wedding ceremony is about to begin and families, brides and grooms are rushing to the pandals. I am feeling asphyxiated by all the shoving so I fix my gaze on a giant screen showing a smiling Rana and his bride, both dressed in gold. Rana’s large nose sits like a beak above a toothy grin. Navaneet perfectly plays the part of the demure bride, looking down shyly, never bringing her eyes up to the camera. They are bowing down to touch the feet of various VIP guests. Baba Ramdev is dressed in saffron robes, his bare chest revealing a taut abdomen and a bony rib cage. He has a long droopy moustache, and a frightening smile. The camera zooms in. I look away. Suddenly there is a drone-like buzz in the air and several people rush towards the front of the ground. The thousand plus police who have been languorously milling around are suddenly attentive and they brandish their lathis, prodding at people for no apparent reason. It appears that the chief minister has arrived.
The smell and smoke of cheap, strong incense permeate the pandal where I stand. A skinny priest sits at the head of the long line of brides and grooms on a makeshift dais chanting Sanskrit mantras in a sonorous voice. His chants reverberate through the speakers in the tent while in the background squeaky piped shehnai music rises to a crescendo. Everywhere there are families dressed in wedding finery. Young girls with kohl-lined eyes flit about, dressed in bright sequinned lehengas and ornamental bindis; the boys are dressed in sherwanis, and kurta pajamas; some of them are in suits. When Vivek Oberoi, a fading Bollywood star arrives, several people dash off to the main stage to get a glimpse of him. One of the deserters includes the mother of a tearful bride-to-be. The bride looks at the ground, never raising her eyes to meet those of her prospective husband. The husband, a lanky young man wearing thick glasses, looks equally uncomfortable.
Hindu weddings take place in most of the pandals, but there is also a tent which features Muslim nikahs. The Muslim pandal is far less chaotic than the Hindu one. An imam with a f
iery orange beard wearing a white-lace skull-cap is reciting verses from the Koran. Men and women are separated by a large white bed sheet that divides the pandal in two. The groom’s faces are covered with a blanket of flowers attached to their headgear, and the brides are covered by burkhas or green and gold chunnis. Outside I see several wide-eyed Hindus looking on with trepidation at the solemn ceremony.
Other pandals are advertised: a Christian pandal, a Jain pandal, even a Buddhist pandal, but I am unable to locate any of them. I return to the Hindu pandal where I see several empty seats in the line-up of brides and grooms. A young bride, her face splattered with inflamed acne, set off by lips made up with shiny lipstick of the same colour, is on the verge of tears. I ask her where the groom is. Everyone is confused, a hirsute man, her older brother, looks furious, ‘Woh saala bhag gayaa. (He ran away.) We’ll find him, and then we’ll show him,’ he says cracking his long fingers. Then, much to my alarm, he pulls out a long knife from somewhere inside his pants. I urge him to put the weapon away and then ask him how the jilted bride met her groom. The brother tells me that they had only met the groom once through a marriage broker who had taken his cut and disappeared. They are trying to call him now, but his phone is switched off. The bride sits cowering in her seat and the family doesn’t move. The ceremony isn’t over. They will wait here till the end. There is still a chance that the groom may turn up.
The situation is better for the bride at the next kund. She seems enthralled by the occasion and sports a big smile, despite the fact that her nose has begun to bleed due to the large gold nose ring she is wearing. She is smiling so brightly that her mother comes and covers her face with her red pallu, whispering angrily in her ear. It isn’t good behaviour for a bride to look so exuberant and happy. Hers, I find out, is a love marriage. The groom and she are neighbours in Amravati, he is a computer technician, and she a school teacher. Her name is Shilpy and she tells me that it was her dream to have the film star Shahrukh Khan attend her wedding. He was one of the guests advertised to grace the ceremony and that is why she is participating in the communal wedding. Shilpy asks her mother desperately if Shahrukh has arrived. There is no sign of him yet.
Amidst the chaos, I speak to a wrinkled farmer wearing a festive red turban. For him it’s a package deal—three of his daughters are marrying three brothers. He tells me that he’d always wanted to give his daughters a grand wedding, but he wasn’t able to afford it with the poor crop yields he’s been having. His daughters are getting old and he feels that no one would have married them if he had waited. He has not been able to give a dowry to his sons-in-law though they have each demanded a two-wheeler. If this year’s crop is good, he will buy them scooters, if not, a cycle will have to do.
The three grooms are seated next to each other in a line. The youngest brother is just a teenager and has a fine wispy moustache, and a shy smile plays on his lips as he steals glances at his young bride. All three sisters are dressed identically in red and gold saris, shiny gold baubles and blood-red bangles on their wrists. I ask one of the sisters, a grave-faced young girl who sits with a staid expression on her face, gazing into the holy fire: ‘Are you happy to get married?’
‘I don’t know,’ she mumbles from underneath her sari with a lack of visible emotion.
‘Why? Aren’t you excited?’ I ask, hoping to get a more enthusiastic response.
‘I don’t know,’ she replies.
‘Do you like your husband?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know,’ she repeats with finality.
The plight of this poor farmer is the plight of many. The stupendous cost of today’s weddings puts an intolerable strain on most middle-class families and makes weddings almost impossible for the poor. The only salvation they can hope for is the sort of mass wedding that’s taking place here today or some other form of charity or state-based intervention that eases their burden.
Mass confusion takes place during the saptapadi (translated literally into seven steps) when each couple takes seven circles around the sacred fire solemnizing the marriage. Space is limited, and as couples attempt to walk around the havans, the brides and grooms bump into each other. Fighting and arguments break out. A band of dholak players arrives, beating jaunty rhythms, moving from couple to couple, demanding tips. In the background, the pandit bellows hoarsely into the mike, asking the disruptive dholak players to leave the tent and for people to stop fighting.
I try my luck at getting up on stage where Rana’s special ceremonies are taking place. I push my way through the crowds of people, finally reaching the foot of the massive stage. Here I am denied entry. A bouncer asks me for my pass. I say that I am a journalist and he points sternly to a media tent where journalists are crowded around a screen watching the ceremony. I try to explain that I am writing a book but my explanations ricochet off his giant frame. After a while he only looks at me grimly and then ignores me completely. My only option now is to watch the ceremony on screen with the other journalists. At the media tent, free tea and snacks are offered and all the journalists are digging in. I ask a local Marathi journalist about his views on Rana’s tactics.
‘He is simply a devta,’ he says staring in awe at Rana’s golden persona on screen. ‘He has made his people happy. This is what the kings used to do in the olden days. He is surely going to have a happy marriage, and be blessed with many sons.’
The journalist’s words have a certain truth to them. From time immemorial, leaders have financed weddings to gather goodwill. Today scheming governments have realized the importance of marriage and are using weddings to their political advantage. Several states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have set aside welfare funds for organizing mass marriage ceremonies according to caste, community and religion. Under state-run schemes, marriages are solemnized free of cost, and sometimes even dowry is offered in the form of gifts of household articles. On the face of it, it seems like a bright idea. Mass marriages can help the families of brides who incur the costs of hosting the wedding, it can curb unnecessary wedding spend, and can also ease the pressure of dowry.
Unfortunately, these schemes have evolved, like so many other things in India, into scams. Organizers get commissions from governments, middlemen make money by enlisting couples. They are also leading to bride kidnappings and fake marriages where married couples remarry just for gifts. State governments use marriage for their own strategic purposes. In Gujarat, on 27 February 2011, in memory of the Godhra train attack in 2002, a communal marriage was held to breed communal harmony—Muslim couples were wedded and the town’s Hindu community was invited.221 In Wadia, a locality that has been involved in prostitution (the village’s men traditionally lived off the women’s income from prostitution), women are married in mass ceremonies in an attempt to curb prostitution.222 Madhya Pradesh has a marriage scheme called Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojana, literally meaning the Chief Minister Giving Away His Daughter Plan. An estimated 34,000 girls have been married off at a total cost of 42 crore under this scheme launched in 2006. The government of Madhya Pradesh has set aside a sum of 9,100 as wedding expenses for each girl, buying her a sari, anklets, a single bed, a mattress and a pressure cooker.223 If the chief minister, or Mama (as he’s called by the organizers), chooses to attend the wedding ceremony, the booty is expanded to include a gold mangalsutra, a steel cupboard and a gas stove. Wedding schemes in the state have been so successful that some say this is the secret behind the government’s second term.
But these weddings also come with their fair share of controversy. Recently in Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of would-be-brides, mostly from poor tribal families, underwent virginity and pregnancy tests before they were allowed to participate in the mass marriage ceremony. According to reports, they were bullied into these examinations and were told that their refusal would mean that they wouldn’t be allowed to participate and more importantly wouldn’t be given their wedding gifts worth 6,500.224 Of the 152 prospective brides tested, fourteen turned out to be p
regnant and one was a minor.225
Back in Amravati, the wedding ceremony has come to an end. It is chaotic again, this time the chaos is coupled with emotion. Copious tears are shed, gifts are distributed, and there is much pushing and fighting to get to the food pandals where a wedding feast is on offer. I have been spending some time with Shilpy’s family. When I go to congratulate her she takes my hand and pulls me into a smelly embrace. She points a hennaed finger at me and invites me to her home for a celebration. I take her address and promise to come.
The yoga guru Baba Ramdev begins to speak. The acoustics are poor, and it doesn’t help that Baba is screaming into the mike. I struggle to understand what he is saying. I hear something along the lines of ‘Get married, but be celibate. Remember Gandhiji. Save your semen’. It surely doesn’t seem to be the most appropriate of wedding speeches. Celebratory firecrackers erupt in the sky, and smoke fills the area. Everyone looks on in glee. A cracker bursts fearfully close, and I think of what will happen if one of these crackers lands on any of the numerous canvas tents. There isn’t a single fire escape in sight.
It is twilight now, and a hazy full moon rides low in the sky. There are no clouds, no wind, and no stars visible because of the dust and the smoke of the fireworks display. Most of the guests have left and a slew of workers is taking down the pandals. The ground is littered with used plates, plastic cups, withered flowers and other debris. In the course of just a few hours, as the result of one political stunt, over 3,000 people have been made husband and wife.
I make my way to Shilpy’s home which is in a crowded residential colony in Amravati city. Her squat, square house is painted entirely in baby pink and is lit up with strings of multicoloured flickering bulbs. The party is in full swing when I arrive. It is mostly ‘youngsters’—the newly-weds, their siblings, cousins, and a few friends. Shilpy’s mother and a few aunts are there to supervise the party.