It’s that time of the year again! When the inbox is full of wedding invitations.
I have received six or seven invitations in the last few days. I guess given that it’s been three years since b-school, this is peak time for the “Wonderful Day” as marriage invitations put it.
It is interesting to note that in marriage invitations, more often than not, the educational qualifications of the bride and bridegroom are mentioned along with their name. I wonder if this happens in any other country but it is quite understandable in India where education in some ways shows your status in society and is still a major means for the ‘good’ life.
What is also interesting is when the person who is getting married is your close friend, one gets verbal (Phone call) or written communication (Orkut scrap or mail or SMS) with varying degrees of threats to come for the marriage.
Some are requests, “Please try to see if you can make it.”
Some are outright threats, “Agar tu nahi aaya to achcha nahi hoga” (If you don’t come, you will have to face the consequences.)
Some assume you are coming, “Ok, so which flight are you coming in?”
It is difficult to react to these statements especially when one knows that is difficult to make it. I usually end up giving a global general answer! It is difficult to go for every marriage invitation one receives.
I also know of few married people who only go to those weddings where one of the bride and bridegroom came to their marriage!
Overall, I suppose marriage hopping is quite a pleasant experience for most people, a chance to enjoy and catch up with friends.
I think to myself, If only we could cut down a little bit on some of the outright lavish stuff during marriages… But then who defines what is lavish and what is not lavish? Hmmmm.
Even if we don’t cut down on the lavishness, I do hope we cut down on the ‘ticket size’ of the “gifts” that are given by the bride’s parents to the new couple.
And to end on a radical note, maybe one day marriages would be 50:50 jointly financed by the bride and bridegroom’s family instead of the current skewed pattern of spending primarily by the bride’s side.
Economics theory says that anything in short supply would become more ‘expensive’. If onions are not available in the market, the price goes up. Fairly simple. Similarly, If India’s gender ratio continues to skew more and more towards males, the day a bride’s family starts demanding ‘gifts’ from the bridegroom’s family may not be far away!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
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