T he stage is set. The audience of varied ages has taken their seats. The lights are turned on; the audio is revved up to a popular Bollywood number.
The dancers enter, in themed outfits and begin grooving. After a 10-minute medley of Hindi songs, another troupe takes the stage for a set of Tamil kutthu songs. Some dancers are great, some are awkward, but they are all having a great time performing. The dances are even interactive, sometimes cajoling the seated aunties and uncles to move to the tunes. When the moment is right, the stars of the show enter and shake a leg for yet another medley. They wear colour-coordinated outfits and are egged on by the audience. After they are done, a cheer erupts, and everyone goes back to chitchat over platefuls of chaat.
Did you think I was describing a high-school annual day performance? Nope, it was actually a Sangeet evening of weddings. Borrowed from north Indian brethren, the Sangeet is now a fixture in weddings of the south. Not all of them of course — the ones that are spread over several days and have countless events. The Sangeet is usually the first. We then move onto the wedding itself. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in a long movie shoot. It’s ‘Lights, camera, action’ all the way.
The venue decoration is elaborate. Caterers are the best in the business. They are expensive, but hey, they feed you well and you get ‘hospitable’ people i.e strangers who closely watch what you eat for free. The elders of the families are like the best of prop managers; they list down and procure everything that is needed for a smooth sailing of ceremonies to the last detail.
When you’ve been to as many of these weddings as I have, you’ll realise that they each aspire to out-do last — the cover of the Thenga paruppu, the material of the hand-held fan, the texture of the walking stick that is given to the groom, and the design of the umbrella bring out the ooh’s and the aah’s...it’s all about the small details.
A costume designer may or may not be involved, but the clothes on the couple wouldn’t look out of place in a high budget film. There’s HD make up involved. If the bride cries, it’ll still stay on. The difference would be that there is no rehearsal. At these weddings, everyone seems to know their cue, when to enter and exit, as if it been rehearsed over months. But again, most people have played these parts before.
And of course, since wedding photography and videography are now full time professions, there are cameras all around. They capture every candid moment, making no room for viewing, that most of the guests get to watch the proceedings only on a TV screen. All in all, an exhausting movie.
At a wedding recently, an elederly lady explained the significance of certain ceremonies. One has its roots in child marriage. Another involves the bride being given a heavy object symbolising the burden of the husband’s family that she will have to take on henceforth. There’s one that has the groom walking away to Kasi, and the bride’s father and brother begging him to return to marry the girl. Then there’s the first ‘physical contact’ between the couple. The joke is that the couple does not even know why they’re being asked to perform the ritual.
I have nothing against marriages — its clearly a personal choice. I’m not even getting into religions, communities, or even ‘arranged marriages’ for that matter. But we can’t deny that marriages are becoming more exhibitionist than ever, and hardly looking inward. Like movies — masala, drama, songs, and time-pass but backward and archaic at their core.
Is it not possible to go over the meanings of these ceremonies and create your own if you must, when dances are being rehearsed over skype? When so much thought goes into hosting a great event, surely it can’t be too hard for young couples to first question, and then leave behind regressive rituals? When costumes can be designed, can’t customs be altered?
(The writer is a Chennai-based activist, in-your-face feminist and a media glutton)