The Great(er) Indian Wedding:Bigger the better?

chandigarh: in the past few days the city has once again been visited by the feted; some for the first time and some making a 'comeback' yet again; some big some small but all celebrities in their own right... meher sarid, sukhwinder singh, sanjay dutt, sabeer bhatia, sameer thapar... and the one common reason that brought most of them to the city: weddings. meher sarid, a wedding planner (and you thought they existed just in movies) put together a grand reception for a young couple at hotel north park. hosted by sameer thapar, the reception had people like sanjay dutt attending the functions. and on sanjay's repeated requests singer sukhwinder singh decided to lend his chaiyya chaiyya voice, though he doesn't normally perform at private functions. 'hotmale' sabeer bhatia was also here to see someone tie the knot. the decor at most of these high-profile weddings was stunning and that brings me to the point of the enormous waste they entail. truckloads of flowers brought in (before being flown in from bangkok), which lose all value and meaning the very next day, so much of money spent in tent detailing, lighting, food, the list is endless. and i can bet that almost everyone would have found something to complain about - the paneer was too salty, the mutton was undercooked... it's a common enough occurrence at every great indian wedding. which is why mira nair's monsoon wedding was such a scream. injecting a large dose of reality (fathers do have to pay bills, sometimes taking loans to provide a wedding that lives up to expectations) into our dreamlike ideas of what a wedding should be. it punctured the balloon that most indians happily let themselves be tempted to follow, even if it means cutting the very string they grew up holding. take the many cases in punjab where dowry is a still an issue, where younger sisters and brothers have to do with less so the elder sibling can be married off in a respectable fashion. unfortunately, consumerism is sweeping us in every way. a young retailer shows me a lehenga for rs 1 lakh calling it reasonably priced. you don't get a decent one for less than rs 48-50,000 these days, he says casually. at exhibitions i visit, trousseau packers show tissue packets in which to wrap saris, present shagans, and wrap other items, including clothes. sometimes i wonder if presentation will one day overshadow what it intends to enhance. it will almost be like that old birthday prank, when you wrapped a small gift in tonnes of newspaper so that the present looked really big and the birthday person kept on opening the gift endlessly before reaching a small little pouch. the end was almost a disappointment, well, nearly always. unfortunately, it's the same in many weddings. after the pomp and the show, the orchids and the prawns, are over, and it's the simple girl minus the frills, she doesn't seem all that attractive (in a lot of cases) any more. can we lift this veil from our eyes? unlikely. it's not commercially viable you see. monsoon, you know, always is. what's permanent now is kabhi kushi kabhi gham. geetika_bhandari@indiatimes.com