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Wedded to extravagance
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Weddings in Kerala are no more synonymous with simplicity, dignity and grace, writes A. KHYRUNNISA
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Come wedding season, and watch the roses grow on the cheeks of jewellers, textile shop owners, flower sellers, beauticians, owners of wedding halls, caterers, photographers, videographers and luxury coach operators. And with the wedding season stretching over almost the whole year, the roses are more or less permanent superimpositions on these happy visages.
And why won't they sport smiling faces, twinkling eyes and walk with a spring in their steps? They are the greatest beneficiaries of today's most lucrative and thriving industry: marriage.
There was a time when weddings in Kerala were synonymous with simplicity and dignity, and the rest of the country admired the State for its taste and good sense. The coy bride would be dressed in a cream saree with a narrow gold border, and wear a few pieces of jewellery. The bridegroom would be clad in a simple cream dhoti and spotless white shirt, a lesson in elegance. Exchange of garlands, tying of the thali, a few photographs to capture the `so happy together' look, a tasty vegetarian meal, and the wedding would be over.
The virulent epidemic of filmi culture has finally attacked Kerala too and helped reduce the serious, yet joyful, occasion of a Kerala wedding to a vulgar showy extravaganza. The shy bride of the past has been replaced by the resplendent bride of today who wears dazzling colours that would cause a peacock to go into hiding and sulk for weeks. She does stoop, but her shy-bride look has been compulsorily enforced on her by the kilos of gold she wears. She may have been well trained at the marriage coaching classes (yes, there are such classes too) to look smart, stand erect and ooze confidence and poise. However, at the testing time, the Modern Bride can only manage to stand as straight as an Easter lily and walk at a pace that would make a tortoise's crawl seem a canter. Sometimes you might see the heartening sight of a bride wearing just a single necklace round her neck and believe that good sense has finally begun to prevail. But this optimism is short-lived.
Very soon, the audible collective gasp that had greeted this shocking revolutionary sight is followed by a fast spreading rumour that the necklace is made of platinum and studded with flawless diamonds.
It is the latest status symbol of the very rich and worth a king's ransom.
So much for the appearance of austerity.
The bridegroom wears a very costly dhoti and a silk kurta, and has an artificial smile plastered on his face in a vain bid to hide his nervousness.
The poor soul cannot be blamed for feeling nervous, for the sea of humanity that gathers at wedding can unnerve even the most hardened politician. `Everyone is invited' could easily be the most fitting slogan for present day weddings. Everyone from obliging VVIPs to the driver's second wife's brother-in-law's fourth cousin has been presented with an invitation. Often, it is not an overflow of the milk of human kindness and hospitality that prompts this reckless inviting; it is the desire of people to be one up on their neighbours who did not go beyond third cousins in their invitee list.
While men try to avoid weddings (except their own and sometimes even that) if they can help it, women come into their own in the wedding hall atmosphere.
Weddings are opportunities for them to dress and make themselves up, to socialize and to pick up the threads of gossip they had reluctantly relinquished at a previous wedding when they had been forced by long-suffering husbands to call it a day.
Weddings also offer them a chance to test their prodigious memories by recollecting how many guests have repeated sarees and jewellery worn at other weddings.
Conversation generally revolves around who is wearing what and rough estimates of the prices of other guests' sarees and jewellery are offered.
A critical commentary on the bride's outfit and gold is given unasked.
Opinions are freely aired about the looks and appearance of the bride, groom and their close relatives and, based on them, forecasts of the success or failure of the marriage are made.
There may be a horde of invitees. But hardly any of them get to watch the marriage ceremony. The modern age with its slavish pursuit of images that it wishes to preserve for posterity allows only the mechanical eye of the camera to witness the ceremonial exchange of designer garlands. The guests are treated to the sight of the posteriors of a motley group of camera toting photographers and videographers who encircle the stage at the right moment with the alacrity of a guerrilla troop that has scented a successful ambush.
A few persevering guests may get fleeting glimpses of bits of the bride among all that gold and glitter, but that is all. At the right moment, a basket of flowers, poised high and precisely over the couple's head, is manipulated by unseen hands and tilted to release a shower of floors on the bride and groom. This basket, in fact, has the best view of the wedding. (Some baskets have all the luck). The flowers that are handed to the guests to be flung on the couple, when the thali is tied, seldom reach their target. The photographers are more often the recipients of these floral blessings.
For most of the guests, the feast is the high point of wedding. Once the marriage ceremony is over one can see the hall miraculously empty itself and watch the throng make a determined bid to reach the doors of the dining room. A huge crowd often collects before the door. Class, age and sex distinctions and the privileges that go with them are forgotten in the mad scramble for a place in the dining hall. Men, looking animated at last, hold on to their dhotis for dear life while they jostle with one another. Generously proportioned women who look as if they had been born with ladoos in their mouths stand impatiently like starving refugees waiting for food packets to be airdropped. Sophisticated women, sporting recently renovated faces, abandon their snobbish aloofness and hauteur in this single-minded zest for seats at the dining table. Young girls bring their skills, developed through years of fighting their way into transport and college buses, to bear in elbowing their way to the door. Acrobatically gifted children wriggle through the legs of grownups to reach the same destination. Respectable looking old ladies are not averse to using elbows, feet and colourful language to gain a slight advantage over others.
Soon all is set for the grand entry. The man opening to door generally races for cover as with wild shrieks and screams the marauding army shoots into the hall like hungry lions released into the ancient Roman arena.
Mostly, the guests do not have to make any effort to move. With effortless ease, they are helpfully propelled from behind and launched like rockets into the hall. In no time, the hall fills up and the door is once again closed on the faces of disappointed looking, outsmarted and outmanoeuvred guests who would do well to take a crash course on How to Make a Successful Entry into the Dining Room of a Wedding Hall.
The policy of one-upmanship is seen at work even in the choice of the menu. The traditional two payasams have now become four and sometimes even five. Even the humble pickle has become a pawn in this game. The waiters are egalitarian though. Where tables are narrow, a fair amount of food lands on modest cotton dhotis as enthusiastically as it does on rich Kancheepuram sarees. With every course served, the cartography skills of the waiters improve. When the meal is over, the guests carrying ill-sketched maps of many countries of the world on their clothes, make a general exodus. The curtain is finally drawn on the elaborate drama called the wedding. The only people still busy are the groom's parents who are tearing about hunting for safe-deposit lockers.
Bernard Shaw is said to have commented that a wedding is a public expression of private intentions. But the modern wedding is a positive blaring out of intentions, private and public. The damage caused by such weddings is enormous. If some of our sociologists are to be believed, Kerala's rising suicide rates are linked to this often-garish form of competitive vulgarity. Not all weddings fall into this category though.
There are still some people who opt for weddings that preserve the atmosphere and spirit of the Kerala of the past.
Illustration: O. Sundar
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