Indian Wedding

An Indian marriage is performed with great fanfare. All people whether rich or poor spend a lot of money on this occasion. It is a very expensive event.

Unfortunately, in India, a father cannot marry off his daughter unless he is in a position to give a sufficient amount of dowry to the parents of the boy. That is why parents consider the birth of a girl as an economic burden. Dowry is the worst of all social evils. The poor parents have to borrow a lot of money to spend at the time of marriage to purchase the various costly items of dowry.

The Government has, no doubt, declared that demanding or accepting dowry is a cognisable offence but this evil still continues unabated. The most inhuman and sordid part of the dowry system is that if a bride does not bring sufficient dowry from her parents, she is tortured mentally and physically by her in-laws. The Government should make the law more stringent to serve as a warning to the greedy people.

However, an Indian wedding is otherwise a very colourful social event. Preparations for the celebration of an Indian marriage start a month or two in advance of the wedding day. Parents of the bride start purchasing clothes and other items of dowry. Every day they have to go for shopping. They buy jewellery, clothes, utensils, etc. They also book tents, shamianas, carpets, crockery, lights etc. in advance to arrange the reception of the marriage party.

The wedding of my sister was fixed for 15th January, 2004. My parents started preparations for this marriage many weeks in advance.

Our house was given a face-lift. It was thoroughly white-washed. Wedding cards were sent out to all our relatives and friends.

In fact, my father had to take leave from his office for one week. The relatives started arriving in our house three or four days in advance.

The confectioner came to our house two days in advance and started preparing the choicest sweets. A number of guests were pouring into our house every hour. We had...