DailyPost 936
A CASE FOR FRUGAL INDIAN WEDDING!
Big Fat Indian Wedding is the most apt way of describing The Indian Wedding. For a humour loving nation what could have been a sarcasm is treated as an ultimate compliment. But for the filthy rich a wedding of this nature, which everyone aspires to conduct, depending on his financial capabilities, is one time superfluous spending, of a lifetime of savings, efforts and aligning time and energy out of lots of activities; personal and professional, without giving much thought to its repercussions. Marriages in a cumulative manner is one of its kind economic and social enterprise.
There is for sure a case for a Frugal Indian Wedding. What far reaching impact would it entail in the life of an Indian. First and foremost it would mean that we as a community and a nation, don’t believe in superfluous expenditure, in a nation so scare on resources, where those resources can be used in hundreds of productive ways by the families themselves. The time spend on preparation only for the final event runs into months and the actual operations are on for two or four / five days. It is humungous work for all involved, full time or taking breaks out the jobs quite regularly for months together.
Besides the direct stakeholders, the societal norms makes every close person and even distant ones liable for presence depending on the intensity of relationship, within the family /friends/ colleagues / acquaintances. If you have to attend ten marriages in a year, you can keep deciding you work schedule, leave, holiday and travel. It’s not easy participation. It’s comes for a price – time and money. The method of inviting is time taking as it is personalised. The nature of attending entails cost. Respect and courtesy to be extended to different relatives and individuals, can be treatise in protocol. You can find a few marriage killjoys all around.
For long years investment pattern of the family and also the structured system of purchases, jewellery et al, is in alignment to bigger marriage game plan. It is certainly not the best of investment and not the best purchases for the family/kids. Might be there is is a health impact because of the stress and strain, long winding discussions intra-family, inter-family and financial implications. Frugal also means light on efforts and on complexities. Time to change to a lean, sleek, agile social system, the best place to start would be frugal weddings.
FRUGAL WEDDINGS CAN RELIEVE THE INDIAN FAMILY SYSTEM OF LOTS OF ITS STRESS & STRAINS.
Sanjay Sahay