Category Archives: Indian Weddings






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Welcoming a new bride

A Curious Army Wife

It was a chilly Thursday night and I was holed up in a tiny tent with Captain Sa’ab with nothing but a double blanket and an emergency lamp. I checked my phone, which had 4% battery left and I longed for the day when camping tents would come with a phone charging point.

That was my first night in Captain Sa’ab’s Unit after we got married. We were allotted a guest room during the day, but we returned after dinner to find that it was locked. Captain Sa’ab muttered under his breath, “I was expecting something like this,” when his junior came and told us that our arrangements for the night were made in that tent in the Mess’ garden.

It was 12.30 am, and we were about to call it a day when the regimental band, standing about 10 feet from our tent, pierce the silence with an ear-splitting…

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Indian Weddings – Celebrating wastage

It wasn’t until it was time for me to get married that I realised that weddings in India are not just a joyous occasions celebrating union of two individuals (union of families actually), but an excuse to waste money and food unashamedly.

There are some communities which believe that the nature and character of the groom or the bride is less important than dowry. They accept, nay demand, money, gold, furniture, electronic items, and vehicles from the bride’s family on one hand, claiming to be educated, modern and broad minded on the other. So there… precious education gets wasted.


Every girl dreams of looking like a princess on her wedding day. But face it girl, you aren’t one. So nothing justifies spending a bomb on clothes which you are never gonna wear anywhere else. Yes, you would sparkle on stage next to an equally Swarovski studded guy, but that’s it. I have high regard for two people in this matter — one is a dear friend, and the other is someone I haven’t met ever.

Now this friend told me that he didn’t want to spend a lot on a sherwani which would eventually become food for termites, so he found out about this shop in Jaipur, which would stitch one for you and after the wedding, return 30% of the money if you take that sherwani back.

The other person, of whom I have heard from a friend of mine, did something similar. She spent Rs10,000 on renting a lehenga choli worth Rs70,000. Wore it, got married, kept the choli which was tailored to her specific measurements, and then returned the dress! And she has absolutely no qualms about not being able to keep that dress. Salute!


Ouch.. So many people starve to death in our country, so many children go to sleep hungry at night. Oh but that doesn’t stop us from piling food onto our plates at a wedding reception and then throwing the plate away after barely eating half of it. How difficult is it for parents to teach their children that they should only take what they would eat, and eat what they take.  Can we please have a chapter on wedding manners in our textbooks?


Flowers, rice, pulses and other grains, disposable plates and glasses, and plastic bags. We lose track of how much these things generate waste. Grains go into the holy fire. Flowers adorn your walls and then the dustbins. Plastics need no introduction.


You really have to be a part of a wedding to realise money wastage. I can’t explain it to you in a blog post.