In India, weddings have always required the host to spend a huge amount of money. There are various reasons for this: it is considered to be the most important day in the life of their child; "what will the society think?"; "this is how it is done;" prestige?
However, the change has been enormous and drastic in the past few years. Earlier, the entire family huddled in one house like a litter of puppies and today they occupy hotel rooms individually. Consequently, the time spent with the extended family members is counted. Relatives are now accustomed to huge spaces with a lot of decoration and a vast variety of food. A lot of this food gets wasted.
Perhaps, the Indians are missing a piece from the puzzle. They believe that they have all the pieces of the puzzle in place but they are missing a huge piece. What is that? Why are weddings becoming more and more elaborate?
The fashion industry knows that the people are willing to spend a lot of money on the wedding clothes. Lehengas, suits and sarees! Women have a weakness for such beautifully made garments. It is a good thing to adorn yourself beautifully. However, one should be aware of the splurging. If one of the ladies of the group splurges, the other women get an inferiority complex and wish to splurge too. According their theory, their looking good is directly proportional to the cost of the garment. Is there not an excess of emphasis on external appearances?
This leads me to make-up. Fair is beautiful and make up should change the way one looks. The money spent on make-up has increased sharply. I wonder whether it is because women are insecure about their appearances or they are just too fond of make-up! Is media not to be blamed for making women dissatisfied with their bodies? They earn greatly in this process.
Blah!Blah! Blah! They same goes for the wedding cards, jewellery and one should not miss the wedding planners. First, people make weddings an astronomical task and then they spend more to reduce the burden of the task.
The name 'wedding' should be replaced by the phrase 'sky-high consumerism day'!
-Kriti Malhotra
