October has started and Punjab witnesses a unique
season and I am not talking about the winter that we welcome because it is the
return of the NRI family but it is wedding season. We love this not because
marriages are made in heaven or we need to get married to save the dwindling
population of Sikhs (that is mis-information) but just we can give into our love
for bling. We love the play of color, the work the bigger the better,
ostentatious jewelry and out do one another in clothes, jewels, and marriages.
It is a rat race and this has given birth to an entire
industry, from clothes, to trousseaus to jewelry to the tent-wallah to the
mithia-wallah and most famous is we support two unique industries, construction
and the banks.
Whenever there is a forthcoming marriage even if it is
a year away, we start construction in the house; it is mandatory for us to construct.
Be it even a small bathroom or just a little nukkad we love having the mistris
over. It’s an excuse to get marble – sharble and more furniture from the latest
designer. Everything has to be designer by the way, from the card that is
printed to the box that has mithai that is also distinct and different from
everyone. It can vary from laddoos , to the
exotic kiwi barfi to every kind of nut known to mankind. The latest
entry has been chocolates shaped by a chocolatier who fashions chocolates and
serves for an exorbitant price and then one is served eight measly ones in a
box that is all glitter but no gold. However, this is nothing, one has to wear
designer clothes with antique jewelry which belonged to some fictitious
grandmother sitting in the workshops of Jaipur being mass-produced. The father of the bride has to just keep on
saying yes and paying up from clothes, to the designer it bags to the functions
that are hosted under the chandaani raat to the exotic blooms flown in from Thailand,
color coordinated if you please within a bohemian touch or back to roots theme.
It depends what is the year’s fancy, it can range from the icy blues to mauves
to the bright yellow red to the royal maroon. And last year, I witnessed the
East European bar maids where men were gawking at the goris and in the
minuscule costumes serving the favorite drink.
A couple of weeks Gurdas Maan, an icon of Punjab and a
singing giant sang a duet with Diljit dosanjh (someone who is reaffirming that
being a sardar is also cool and one can have swag; my sons taught me this);
that Ki banu Duniya daa. Where he cries in his soulful voice over the changing
times where modernity triumphs over tradition and the dwindling memories of the
bygone era. The time of today where the old ways are lost at the cost of
showing off, materialism, projection of an image where we ransom ourselves to a
mirage of so called modern way of life. A ,world where romance is sacrificed at
the altar of cold twisted feelings of moh maya. A world where tradition is
disappearing at the cost of cold emotions where relationships are weighed in
money and how much the other can do for you. Love, respect is all by gone. And
then as the day of the Mahatma appears we are happy that he was the father of
the nation but thank God 2nd came on a Friday and we could combine
it with the week end, perfect to escape away for three days and to update for
the face book. And, as we write this weddings, bhogs all multiply and one has
to plan visits to the daarzi to get the special outfit that would make the
women go green.
October is also known as the start of MBA , marriage ,
bhog , ardaas when we all start dusting out our shawls to not give us warmth
but to show how much money we have spent
along with the sparkle of diamonds.
He rightly says, what will happen to the worlds? Only
the almighty knows and the heavenly star, and the old man under the banyan tree.
It’s a sad world where elegance and old world charm is dissipating for the so
called mundane, carnal!
Even , the Mahatama had to be shown to us his country
men by a foreign producer forever immortalized by Gandhi and later by Lage Raho
and only dusted on the day by our politicians for the manipulative public.
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