Daily writing prompt
What’s a word or phrase that annoys you?
View all responses

Whenever I hear about weddings costs, my bp shoots high. Recently, suicides in Indian marriages are in news.

“I can’t help saying this’

Why won’t these girls and boys end up hanging themselves?

I went to a village. The father is struggling to support the family through hard physical labour, yet the daughter who is not even a graduate wants a pre-wedding shoot.

Then come to the case of daughters of wholesale dealers — they’ve chosen destination weddings in the nearby hills.

Now let’s talk about the sons and daughters of government employees who are engineers and doctors. A girl or boy from North India is travelling to another state for a destination wedding with a groom or bride from South India. They don’t even understand each other’s language. Their only support is a handful of English-speaking friends and relatives.

Then there are those who live off rental income from shops and houses. Their children go abroad just to pursue an ordinary MA degree. They meet their partners there. Then they return home for a destination wedding. The friends accompanying them have already undergone a month of dance training. After that, everyone is somehow taken to Goa or Pondicherry with some expenses covered. Even maintaining these friendships cost money.

I asked them plainly: “if you spend so much money attending others’ weddings, where will you get money for your own wedding?”

I too have had the fortune of witnessing an elephant’s wedding — if not in person, then certainly through the media.

The wedding in the Mukesh Ambani family went on like the TV serial Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi — it just never seemed to end.

The middle and lower-middle classes may lack wisdom, yet they never hesitate to show off. If they had any sense, they would have listened to what Mukesh Ambani himself demonstrated instead of blindly imitating him.

Ambani spent only 0.5% of his family wealth on his son’s wedding.

Will the salaried class ever learn anything? Those in the middle and lower economic strata seem to think nothing serious has happened unless they see blood. If they were truly educated, they would not have to hang themselves while accusing the other of dowry.”