Good Fortune

Weddings in India can go for days, be splendidly colourful, have many rituals, prayers, dances, serve up spectacular food in vast quantities and also be outrageously expensive and wasteful.

Coming out late tonight at the end of an opulent wedding reception, we were abuzz with all the joy we shared with other guests and the love and care on display. Also the lavishness.
My cousin K's family who hosted the event for his son and bride asked that the guests bring no material gifts only blessings for the newly married couple.

K's family has come a long way since we were kids and we used to stay at my Aunty's house. They were a family of very modest means and huge hearts who always offered us everything they had and their generous hospitality. My Aunty cooked delicious food and remembered our favourites, my cousins would entertain us with songs and card games and at night we would bunk together, sometimes on makeshift swags that we'd roll out on the floor, happy to be sharing time, not registering any discomfort.

Since then my cousins have worked tirelessly and established wildly successful businesses, helped people in need and provided their kids the kind of education and opportunities they could only ever dream of when at the same age.

Driving home last night, I caught sight of many homeless people sleeping on the pavements with only sheets over them and no bedding underneath. Normally extravagant wedding expenses make me uncomfortable especially when the same money could obviously be better used in a multitude of ways in India, not just to quell in some small way the hunger of the vast number of poor who never experience being satiated.

At the extreme end of this spectrum was the wedding in November 2016 of the daughter of an Indian politician by the name of Reddy. 50,000 guests were invited and the series of wedding events cost USD100 million!
Politicians in this country accumulate huge amounts of wealth, often through questionable means and remain unaccountable.

The wedding happened days after the rupee was cancelled by the PM who demonetised the currency making 90% of what was circulating worthless. Most average folks were struggling but the poor became destitute overnight and were desperately trying to scrape together enough to eat.

For a politician to have that level of access to money at a time when the country was in crisis and choose to throw it around on an obscenely expensive wedding should have been deemed a criminal offence. It was scandalous. Mr. Reddy however, is not within the reach of the law.

My cousins haven't forgotten their tough times. Their celebration last night was hard earned pleasure shared with many.