A movement against big, fat weddings

Minna Zutshi

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, March 17

Splurging on weddings and functions is considered a status symbol in Punjab, particularly in rural areas. And women are the worst offenders when it comes to spending extravagantly on big, fat weddings. These observations may seem rather obvious. But these seemingly obvious findings, which came up during a survey conducted under ICAR-sponsored project ‘Utshah’, have far-reaching ramifications. The project deals with various aspects of farmer suicides. Volunteers associated with the project have started a movement against big, fat weddings so that the farmers lead a debt-free life.

According to Dr Sarabjeet Singh, Principal Investigator of the project and professor of Journalism at PAU, simplicity in weddings entails three basics. First, limiting the number of functions to only one. Second, limiting the number of guests to close family members and close friends. Here, the term ‘close friends’ refers only to those who visit your home frequently. Third, limiting the number of dishes to a small number. “We try to impress upon the people that wedding is a personal affair. It is not a show of strength or an occasion to flaunt your actual or purported wealth,” says Dr Sarabjeet.

According to the ‘Utshah’ investigators, big, fat weddings are favourite with women as the latter seek social validation through lavish weddings. The survey found that ‘shagun’ factor also crops up during the weddings. “The guest-list keeps swelling, thanks to a convoluted reasoning according to which the ‘shagun’ given to friends and acquaintances during their wedding functions must come back. Hence these friends and acquaintances cannot be left out of the guest list!” says Dr Singh.

The survey also revealed that some youths committed to keeping weddings a simple affair found themselves in a piquant situation. When their family told the bride’s family that they would prefer to have simple wedding, the bride’s family started suspecting that something was amiss with the boy and that the idea of ‘simple wedding’ was a ploy to deflect the attention away from the groom’s shortcomings!