A reality check!
Slowly but surely, the intimacy, purity and truth of a sacred ceremony demarcating the union of two people popularly known as a ‘wedding’ or — as the nomenclature goes in my immediate context — ‘Lagan’ ‘Shaadi’ or ‘Nikah’ is silently blurring away.. in the mist of (for the lack of a more sensitive term) — consumerism.
Wait — I can explain.
First, let me elaborate what I mean, when I say ‘consumerism’ — The mannerisms of a consumer which affect the mannerisms of the following consumer — eventually leading to the mindless domino effect of sorrowfully non-researched and pitifully uneducated decision making towards lifestyle choices and the eventual destination towards which ones money/energy is directed — is what I mean by ‘consumerism’. Basically, I do not state it in its absolute value of an economic term; in fact, I am taking the liberty to be stereotypical about it! I agreeably use the term in its slang; its negative. An effect of society pressure, an ‘ism’ which is almost malignant and indeed, intoxicating. An abstract which has unfortunately spread over every single aspect of our lives — from education to relationships. A way of life.
Having said this, I go back to the ‘Lagan’ scene in my country. I belong to a extremely staunch Gujarati Jain household. Each proper noun used in the previous sentence has immense cultural understanding, the comprehensive clarity of which is yet in its infancy within my grey-matter, although its been 24 years of thorough immersion. To give you a brief understanding, we are believers of Lord Mahavir; a saint who 2500 years ago attained the state of illumination, hence carved out a path of absolute non-violent living with the idea of renouncing all desires and constantly maintaining the state of equanimity in the mind, heart and soul. Marriage is sacred, permitted and must be vowed into when the bride and groom believe that together, their future family can help one another attain higher levels of peace and wisdom to eventually someday, attain salvation.
Well, marriage today in the very same community has turned into the chaotic give and take of Guccis and Hermes leather products, filled with desirous varieties of exotic intoxicating food and entertainment services spread over six to seven back-to-back different events wherein every single involved family member is in a constant state of extreme stress / anxiety / sorrow / thrill or depression. True story.
How did this happen? A beautiful sacred event in the lives of (who are allegedly supposed to be) non-violent, peaceful humans — a union of souls — has turned into a public display of wealth, a show-off of purchasing power, a competition of who can buy more and give more, a game of ‘who’s wedding was the biggest’, a orgy of jealousy and greed— if Mr. A served peaches in summer, Mr. B must find a way to serve orange flavored water-melon in winter else he assumes all hell shall break lose upon him. Indeed!
Now is when I would like to mention (and I genuinely do not mean to brag) that the Gujarati/Marwadi Jain community usually hails from a decent living background wherein at least two or more generations have been handling/enhancing the same business which has bloomed beyond the imagination of the core founder.
Coming back, this is what a typical wedding looks like — crores of rupees blown up in the matter of a fortnight — distributed as invitation cards and gifts to friends and relatives (that no one shall remember cause there are eight weddings every season!), spent on fancy decorations of candles, plastic little nothings and fresh flowers (which have been grown by the use of intense chemical fertilizers to be able to cater to such vast requirements of absolute waste generation), exploded on clothes and jewelry (I just do not understand why stones cost fortunes?) and of course blown up on the event management, venues, transport facilities, hotel bookings, shoes, dowries, gifts, gadgets and the final expenditure — the honeymoon! Each and every single one of these steps have become vital to the existence of a marriage — like oxygen. And each and every one of these steps have become a subject of competition. The event management is constantly innovating to allow for more expenditure, the caterers are constantly providing food cuisine and decor options beyond imagination and the decorators are constantly and persistently trying to create Utopian (obnoxious) themes with exotic (cruelty cruelty) flowers and lights and fountains and dancers and frills and fairies and god knows — rabbits!
With the growing purchasing power in society, we could have become more spiritually aware due to the luxury of having more time to spend on non-survival requirements, we could have become more philanthropic due to the availability of funds, we could have become more humble, yet powerful — we could have become the gentlemen the world would trust due to the values we stand for and the ethics we showcase. I realize I take a cynical approach when I generalize these statements — and maybe some of us have chosen any / or of the above paths. My words are not directed towards them and they being who they are, know it anyway.
My words are for those who fell into the consumer web — who gave in to the desires that the material world threw at them, who crave and crave more and see no harm in craving and who can not stand that the neighbor threw a bigger wedding party than they could.
Due to this immense competition (which is extremely dear to the service providers — who leave no opportunity to fuel the fire and enhance their services to no end) those families who can not afford to throw as big a wedding — begin to feel like losers even though they have spent much over their capacity. They are looked down upon in society — ‘Oh, Mr. C only served 300 varieties of sweets; we are used to being served 7856!’ You get the idea. 300=0.
Families begin take loans for marriages — to avoid the shame in society. What have the banks to lose? (what have they ever to lose!). Caterers, venue providers, decorators, event managers, banks — these agencies benefit in such humongous amounts, they fail to see beyond the misery of society. They provide, they provide and how!
Along with this, a major role is played by two more factors towards the ‘making of the big fat Indian wedding’ — Bollywood & Social Media. Whether we believe it or not, in India — we are all star struck. We crave our celebrities, we want to look like them, dance like them, live like them — we forget they are humans and their social media presence is but a mere representation of perfection and glamour and that each one’s true life is far from the pictures. This intense attraction towards their glamour makes most brides and grooms want to be like them for the brief period of their wedding — and rightly so! It’s their hour.
But the method in which this goes about is commercialized beyond repair. There now exist agencies whose sole job is to take apparently candid videos of the bride and groom in fancy clothes and make up at destinations so exotic and in poses so Bollywood with the musical playback of the latest romantic hits — like teasers to the movie of their life. Again, the viewing crowd fails to recognize how impermanent those moments were, how made up — how far from the reality of the love the couple truly shares or the problems the couple truly faces. In this illusion, the following couple too wants to live the life of a music video — and here goes the domino! Guess who won? The video making agency.
Next is social media. It might be too strong an opinion, but I believe that social media is a fake created and manufactured illusion of each one’s life — a story of me, my choices and activities, as I wish to tell, about my own self — to the world. And who reveals the pimples?
On such a platform — the outcome of truth is a fantasy. It starts to create a sense of depression on every viewer. No active social media blogger is ever truly enjoying the moment anymore — their head is onto how they would make a post of that moment — how can that moment be told as a story, not experienced as an emotion. So, every wedding moment must be captured in a unique yet extremely display-able manner so that the likes go up and hence, and only hence — the spirits! The true moments are lost in thought of projection, the actual beauty of experience is lost in the aspiration of sharing it.
I recently attended a cocktail party of a friend’s wedding (its the initial party for the purpose of intoxication — which demarcates the beginning of all celebrations and is thrown and the fanciest clubs in town)wherein all the guests were forcibly requested to get a drink (even an empty glass would do) and hold it up in the air for about a minute while from a distance at a height: the DJ and the groom attempted to get the best lit image of the entire crowd raising a toast to the bride and groom which can then be posted on their Instagram. Yes, an entire party was held for the purpose of one image. the guests become puppets to fulfill the desires of social media likes — its a representation of glamour. True glamour lies in simplicity — long forgotten.
This has become a trend now — not just in marriages but in all aspects. From the choices of coffee shops to the choices of schools —hashtags, handles, updates, reviews, tags, brands, names, gossip, clothing, living, driving, breathing standards have gone so high up and have caught each one in such a web — people fail to see through the illusion of material pleasures — the exploitation, mass production, environmental damage, role of advertisement and media and worst of all — loss of a healthy social fabric.
Which was once based on truth.