Big Fat Indian Weddings.
The cliche Big Fat Indian Wedding is somewhat misleading. India is too diverse a country to be slotted into one word or phrase. Every region , sub region has it’s own way of conducting their weddings. If you had some people spending in crores for just the wedding outfits for the bride and groom, there are others who go through the rituals in plain cotton dhotis and saris dyed yellow in haldi.
Thanks to Films and TV serials, there is a kind of convergence defying time and space .
There was a time when the entire village became one huge pandal or mandapam ; food was cooked on industry scale for over a week, though the formal functions were spread over ‘only’ four days. The mud-ovens in the houses were physically destroyed so that everyone was forced to depend on the community kitchen.
As people moved to the cities, the leisurely four day affair got telescoped into one day .
Now the trend shows a switch to a three days revelry. The only difference is that religious rituals take a back seat while fun events like sangeet and mehndi to accompaniment of DJ Music and choreographed dance sequences hog the time. Nowhere is it as pronounced as in a Sikh wedding where the actual wedding ceremony is reduced to about half an hour. Why cut into fun time ? Why not have more time for daru and chicken, music and dance, bhangra and giddha fused with bollywood beats. Even the sedate southies are readily taking to Karan Johar and Ekta kapoor type boisterous , colorful functions.
Recently , I attended a wedding. Baraat with the groom on horseback is always the central point ; the famous Band, Baja ,Baraat. When the bride and groom are from different regions , the ubiquitous pagris become even more colurful. The tall Rajput pagris can be seen along with the flat Puneri (from Pune) pagris.
The Bride and the Groom go through the rituals ,conducted by the pandits while the rest go about the business of eating, drinking and socializing till they are called to shower their blessings on the young couple followed by group photographs. In short , all have fun except may be the the main characters as in most communities the bride and groom are on some kind of fast till the rituals are over .
Screaming kids can appear anywhere at anytime , with are without their video-games on smart phones.
So today , what is it that defines a typical Indian wedding ? May be it is the riot of colours, loud music, be it the traditional Dhol or the modern DJ (often it is the fusion of both), plenty of food and all kinds of drinks, lots of dance and some religion for the Wedding Album !