In India, this time of the year is famous for weddings. The auspicious Akshay Tritiya (one of the most sought after date for weddings) passed inconspicuously this year. Of course, the empty lockers of jewelry stores and unchanged figures of their bank accounts tell a different story altogether. SARS CoV-2, the virus that has caused the most dreaded pandemic of the century COVID-19, has affected the human life with unprecedented fatality. After love, perhaps, it is the most contagious disease to have affected the humankind. So much so that it endangers the gateway to the reproduction of human race- WEDDING! Weddings that result in marriage. In popular lingo, union of souls blah blah blah….. The way we have been dealing with our nuptial functions, it is more about the form than the spirit. Hence, the term THE BIG FAT INDIAN WEDDING.
According to a recent KPMG report, the Indian wedding market is estimated to be at $50 million per year. We are just a step behind USA in this madness. US of A, just like the Olympic medallions, strikes gold here too with a staggering market of $70 billion. It is a bit of face saving for Indian xenophiles, who seek answers of all their inadequacies in the prosperity of USA. Isn’t it not uncommon to here from some of your peers, “yaar kuch bhi kaho US to US hi hai.”
Until recently, before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic the wedding market of this great country of ours having the richest demographic dividend (50 percent of the 1.3 billion population is still under 30) was growing at an astounding rate. 10-12 million weddings per year is not a joke! We are a nation bubbling with sperms and ova waiting for fertilisation. Alas! Before the race could be won our banquet halls had to sport empty look due to the clarion call of Junta Curfew. The junta that was preparing for the wedding of their near and dear ones for last one year was ultimately confined to their rooms. The umpteen-course meals of the Big Fat Indian Weddings have been replaced by the Facebook and Instagram posts of home-cooked delicacies. Ah! This bloody time is such a big leveler. As I say this, I am reminded of Harish Bimani’s introduction to B. R. Chopra’s Mahabharat as kaal/samay (time). No one knows what lies in the womn of time!
Being an omniscient entity, the time itself has presented the picture of the TIMES TO COME! Erstwhile Vivaah was already converted into a tamasha where everything but the traditions held the fort. Sheer commercialisation of weddings coupled with the status symbol resulted in creation of a market that changed all the rules, especially in the urban setting. DDLJ, KJo and daily soaps played the role of effective catalyst in this social reaction. Strange thing was that all sort of “isms” lost their identity to the charm of wedding functions. Not naming them would be best. However, examples are not rare where avowed atheists have tied mangalsutra around the neck of their consort, while their counterparts have sported sindoor despite their feminist moorings. For rustic Indians like me, it is a daily affair. I pity these “ists” who succumb to the mighty charm of weddings in the pretext of family obligations. This jaalim zamaana is ruthless. It does not even let us revel in our hypocrisy. Indian youth has so much to answer but it loses race to sexuality, I am sorry family obligation, way too often. After all papa mummy ke armaan ke liye itna ti bantaa hai.
Post COVID era would change our lives significantly. This is the recurrent motif in the expressions of contemporary intellectuals. Indian weddings, of course, would not be insular to this black swan event of our times. A disease which is an aggravated form of flu has turned out to be the nemesis of mighty Europe and the almighty USA. I wish the Avengers could descend on the Earth and fight all the BATMEN of the East! Again, imaginations rarely materialise. Coming back to weddings, Indian weddings are a combo pack. It is not a single day affair. In fact, the preparation starts from the birth of the person itself. Believe me, post-coital pregnancy has gestation period of 9 months only. However, the gestation period of the ceremony that ensures this socially approved coitus is minimum of 21 years in case of males and 18 years in case of females. In the neol-liberal era where the financial settlement is the prominent determinant of match-making this period gets extended by a decade.
So, a couple that delivers a baby enters into a programme of life which is very similar to their own. No easy departure is possible. Even your peers become the nagging nannies once you cross a particular age, to be specific, marriageable age. All this is somewhere directly or indirectly linked to that one great event, the greatest party ever- THE BIG FAT INDIAN WEDDING! (BFIW)
Would BFIW be shorn of its grandeur in post-COVID era? Indians have a short memory, huge population and a gargantuan socialising tendency. So, big public gatherings will not be totally out of market in the post-COVID era. Bengaluru managed to have one during the COVID scare itself! Nonetheless, we will surely observe glaring behavioural changes in the way BFIW are organised.
As a lawyer, I feel that there might be a marked increase in the registered marriages (popularly known as court marriages). It fulfills the criteria of beautiful, cheap and enduring (sundar, sasta and tikaau) function. Social distancing could also be easily practised in a compound that our family members would rarely wish to visit. Social distancing is an oxymoron in the BFIW. What the heck is this social distancing in a function that seeks non-separation of- leave the bodies- SOULS for not only this life but next seven lives.
My heart wrenches seeing people marrying each other in a temple compound with masks on. So many girls and boys have been ditching their lovers and avoiding this elopement induced temple-setting marriage in order to fulfill the family ambitions of BFIW. Repaying their debt to their Baghban. Big B has done great disservice to the millennial generation by acting in the eponymous movie. It raises the expectation of the family every time it is telecast on TV. Ultimately, the girl ditches the boy by saying that I have to fulfill my family obligation. You might feel hurt but I never intended to hurt you! The vice versa in case of boys is equally true. Family, therefore, is a firewall that strays all the LOVELY VIRUS ATTACKS.
Post-COVID era, therefore has to fight the family forces. Indian marriage, apart from the two souls, bodies is the amalgamation of two families that might not meet each other ever (at least in minds) once the ceremony gets over. So what would be the scene of a BIFW in 2021 or 2022 where the attendance might be capped to the limit of 50 persons? One cannot imagine the number of businesses that would get effected in such a situation.
It all starts from the process of match-making (marriage bureau, matrimonial websites, regular arrange marraige agents, love-cum-arrange marriage solicitors etc). If things fall in place the wheel of wedding starts rolling. Believe me, now days it results in a flurry functions having different themes and a single hashtag. After all, it’s #BFIW!
Restaurants, sweet shops, invitation cards, card designers, printers, hoteliers, caterers, banquet hall owners, jewelers, cloth merchants, tailors etc etc…. the list is endless. It would not be an exaggeration to state that BFIW encompasses literally everything beneath the SUN. Don’t judge me on sexist lines as the SUN here is different from the prodigial SON who was born to be groomed in the high-end salon of the city. After all, who doesn’t like to be pampered, even if it is for a day. These beauty packages market send “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” junta to the bin. BFIW ought to be a sensory affair.
This scourge of corona has endangered the saga of BFIW- economically, psychologically and socially. Even during the war one could not have imagined empty banquet halls during this time of the year. It amply shows that ultimately it is the love for the life that guides us all. Social paraphernalia thrive on the invidualistic survival. Hence, all the brouhaha about social obligations rests on the fulcrum of security of life and money. This is the truth of the human era that is dominated by finance and economics. America, today, is arguing whether they should sacrifice their old for the survival of economy! Whether it is an exalted glory or a self-made abyss, it is for all of us to decide.
Anyways, it is so cruel to see those empty serving pans. Would they be placed at the ordained 6 feet gap for maintaining the social distance? How would baratis perform the nagin dance with such mandate in force? Would we eat without our food morsels and sweets dripping on the expensive attire of the fellow guests? How would those waiters in their oversized uniform serve us? Is it possible to cast Jaimaal from the distance of 6 feet? Post COVID world is a nightmare for the Big Fat Indian Wedding.
Keep the money matters aside, just imagine the dearth of gossip when we will not be able to invite all our relatives- near and distant ones. How would the couples fight over the inadequacy of arrangements? Unless a phupha or mausa is dissatisfied, can an Indian marriage be even considered to be solemnised. Oh Corona! You have indeed posed a civilisational question to the Indian society to which there are no comfortable answers.
BFIW, inspired by Bollywood NRI culture is now a homogeneous occasion. It has a certain template that makes most of the marriages same in their form. Wedding planners in post COVID world have an opportunity to reinvent the inherent diversity of culture by denuding the weddings of the overarching Punjabi flavour, especially in North India. We need to be more sensitive towards the wastage of food, unnecessary spending on lavishness that establishes you socially for a day but deprives the couple of innate innocence of the moment. Let the feelings pour again in the post COVID world, where ostentation takes the backseat while love drives us all along. Let us create an environment that helps us imbibe all that makes us human from inside. The without should not engulf the within.
Post- COVID world should become more sensitive by living in the moment where A weds B becomes a joyous phenomenon and not a social performance!!
Till then, GO CORONA GO!!!
– PM
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