Today the ‘big fat Indian wedding’ is at its fattest. The marriage market is gutted with all sorts of vendors. A new career is born every wedding season, writes Samah Visaria
It was a hot day in February when I returned to Mumbai after attending a friend’s wedding with big news to share.
Me: Guess what!
Friend: I know, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is coming on TV.
Me: No. It’s something bigger!
Friend: Oh my God! Tell me.
Me: He proposed. I’m getting married!
Friend: What! Congratulations. Give me details.
Me: *gives details*
Friend: *almost sobbing* I’m so happy for you. Congratulations.
Me: Thank you.
Friend: So what’s your wedding hashtagIJ
The millenials are constantly trying to find shortcuts in communication. As if abbreviating entire sentences wasn’t enough, we’ve now even started conversing with hashtags (#guiltyascharged). Once, just a trending phenomenon on Twitter, the hashtag has now taken over various forms of social media, especially the gargantuan photo-sharing platform that is Instagram.
So what is the hashtag all about itIJ Originally intended to lay emphasis on any particular subject central to a discussion, the hashtag was meant to find messages with a particular theme. The purpose was to tie together all the posts belonging to a subject. Over the years, however, it has transformed into a style statement within itself. Whether it is big brands or regular people, everyone is using hashtags to make a point. From facts to feelings everything is being attached to the hash symbol. When Shahid Kapoor wanted to announce his wedding to Mira Rajput to the whole world, he didn’t have to write paragraphs about it. Heck, he didn’t even need to write a sentence about it! Just one word — #hitched — was enough to send fans and followers into a tizzy. Girls were swooning over the captioned photograph for weeks!
According to Webstagram #love is the most popular hashtag on Instagram. But look around you, do you see love everywhereIJ With everything going on in the world today I see more hate than love, at least in expression. Could it be that when we use hashtags like #love, it is for the idea that surrounds the hashtag, the statement it makes, the impression it creates rather than the actual feeling of loveIJ Why else would we say #cantlivewithoutyou to a new partner every six monthsIJ Why else would we find #theone multiple timesIJ Has love become too casual a wordIJ Or is it just another social media syndromeIJ
Take marriage for example. It seems impossible to get married without a wedding hashtag these days. For the uninitiated (are there anyIJ) a wedding hashtag is a name given to a wedding, combining fragments of the bride’s and groom’s names in a catchy manner. So if a Shivani Gulati is marrying a Yash Sahu, expect the wedding hashtag to be anything from #ShiSaidYash to #SahuKiGulati. Gone are the days when one would find a pin-up board stating ‘Pinky weds Chandu’ outside the venue of a wedding. So important is this phenomenon that families are spending megabucks to print and place signboards, placards and posters of the wedding hashtags and some even request you to use them for pictures on Instagram!
Today, the ‘big fat Indian wedding’ is at its fattest. While India at large was against love affairs at one point, it is now having a roaring affair with weddings. The marriage market is gutted with all sorts of vendors. A new career is born every wedding season. A survey in 2016 stated that the wedding industry in India is valued at over Rs 1,00,000 crore and is growing at almost 30 per cent annually. On an average, a person spends one-fifth of the wealth accumulated in a lifetime on a wedding ceremony!
The trend of destination weddings has a big hand in the evolution of weddings. Even before deciding who they will marry, people now decide where they will marry. Arranging a wedding is no less than a business deal. While dowry may be illegal, there’s no stopping the recently modernised orthodox from calling middlemen with their wedding budget to find a party with a similar package to pay for the ceremonies. I actually know someone who knows someone whose parents talk in numbers when approaching parties for their daughter’s wedding. The rest is secondary information. The preliminary scanning is the wedding budget.
Wedding planners have flooded the market. Halls and venues need to be blocked nine months to a year in advance because of the rush in peak season (November to February). Make-up artistes give their dates like movie stars. There was a time when the photo lab around the corner was hired to shoot the people eating at a wedding. Today, qualified professionals are happy to give up full-time jobs (and the financial security that comes with it) to become wedding photographers. They come with their own set of conditions and contracts and give you the footage in a trailer + movie format.
Personalisation is everything. The modern Indian has taken every tradition and given it a twist, made it personal. From wedding T-shirts to portrait mehendi, from extravagant cakes to intricate lehengas that tell the couple’s story, the flamboyant Indian is ready to pay obscene amounts to creative heads to get more creative. The wedding is not just an event anymore. For the period it is being planned, it is treated as a separate entity, having its own name, app, and website!
It’s surprising then that despite the unending proclamations of love on social media followed by the most extravagant weddings, the divorce rate in the country is on the rise. Is there a connectionIJ Could the factors be linkedIJ Absolutely! Experts cite that of the many reasons for the rise in the number of divorces in the past few years, one is impulse weddings.
No we’re not talking about getting smashed with a stranger and taking vows at the nearest chapel. We’re not that impulsive yet, thank heavens! We’re talking about the speed at which marriages are being arranged and eventually not working out. It would be valid to ask if social media is even the slightest factor why people are agreeing to tie the knotIJ To post that #hitched photograph, to get clicked at exotic honeymoon locationsIJ People may not take such big decisions entirely for the sake of posting about it on social media but the idea of being able to do that is a key motivator, rooted deep within our psyche and enhanced when we see such photographs and posts of others.
Supported by the number of businesses now running just on Instagram posts and Facebook ads, social media is a factor that cannot be discounted in our lives anymore. I won’t deny OD-ing on social media myself but sometimes I wonder where we’re headed. Are we going too farIJ How far is too farIJ As a generation can we survive without notifying each other about our accomplishmentsIJ Can we go to an exotic location and not post about itIJ Can we fall in love and not hashtag our feelingsIJ Can we have an amazing wedding without a hashtagIJ Maybe we can, but we definitely don’t want to. We want the ‘likes’ of people we hate. We want the jealousy of those we are jealous of. We want instant gratification. It’s all we’ve known. And at the rate we’re going it won’t be long before two people don’t agree to marry each other because their names don’t form a witty enough hashtag! #overandout
Samah is the author of Encounters of a Fat Bride, published by Penguin Random House, Rs 175