The Great Sindhi Weddings

I was unfortunate to have attended not one, not two but four weddings in my community, in a span of 2 weeks, some of close relatives and the others of the superficially close ones! The more I see them, the more I'm shocked at the extravagance.

I fear that the all the glitter and gold will leave me blind one day. Hold on, did I say gold? Naah, the wannabe aristocrats say it with diamonds. Jewellery no longer can be tagged as earrings, necklaces, bangles...they should be renamed as chandeliers, dog straps and handcuffs. I guess the whole thing will weigh more than the super-figure conscious girls themselves.

Forget jewellery, the clothing itself is so heavy that I sometimes wonder why wear the jewellery and add to you burden. At times you really can't make out who the bride is. Thanks to them being the centre of attraction, and being given the excessive limelight that you are not mistaken.

One particularly hilarious experience is the photographers asking the couple to pose in some very cheesy positions. Don't get me wrong on that, but they'll be like, hold her hand like this, look into her eyes, blah , blah, etc ,etc. . Are these snaps meant to be pleasant reminiscences or pictures for the upcoming wedding calender 2007?!

I can go on and on about the materialistic value that is attached to these marriages. The more surprising aspect is I really can't call them neither arrange nor love marriages. My second cousin aged 18 was the bride in one of these marriages. I thought when we banned child marriages, it was majorly for the uneducated masses because they didn't know the detrimental effects it can have, but here I see a girl from an educated background being married off before even she gets hold of her life.

I just said that I was not going to discuss materialism attached to the marriages but if I don't mention this, I doubt the blog is going to be complete. I remember one of our relatives who came to give in the card for the wedding saying "100 crore ki party hai. " I first thought the cocktail party which was one of the gazillion pre- and post- marriage functions was worth 100 crores. Vanity at its peak! But then, I find out that "party" meant the inlaws, "100 crores" was a superlative estimate of their net value. This explains why I can't tag a lot of marriages as arranged or love marriages, they're business contracts!!!

I don't have anything against our weddings. If you have it, you are definitely free to flaunt it. Nonetheless, when I see the amount of street children barely getting a meal a day, or say the no. of people suffering at the hands of calamities, I wonder if it would be wiser to be a little philanthropic with the expenditure and contribute to charity! Weddings happen once in a life time, but then if we can attach a greater meaning to them than just restricting them to mere platforms for showing off, they'll be a lot more memorable, for greater no. of people than just the couple!!