Weddings can be quite exasperating. Especially if you have neither the time nor the inclination to get a dozen outfits made, make that tiresome trip to the locker to get out the rocks and find suitable and sparkly footwear. Memories of the pitying looks flung my way when I bravely ventured out to big fat Punjabi weddings in my well-worn but real zari Kanjeevaram saris and footwear without the blingy accessories still rankle. I have since upped the shine-quota, but only a bit, before venturing out, albeit with some amount of trepidation, into Gatsby-land: sprawling farms on the outskirts of Delhi transformed, as if by the genie in Aladdin’s lamp, into the fantasy of the season. A faux-Versailles, Rajput palace, former American President Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home with its palladium columns and high domes, a vineyard, something out of the Arabian Nights – take your pick: the force is with you. Deep pockets are getting positively subterranean.

Once I got over – rather sublimated – my discomfort with the competitive display of wealth (a king’s ransom hanging round many a neck in a country with millions below the poverty line) I began to enjoy the wedding marathons, mainly because of the conversations on the side, stolen moments of gossip and whispered bitchiness, in between the various festivities and ceremonies. Cut off for a few days from the routines and rhythms and realities of their lives a very willing suspension of disbelief takes place amongst the wedding guests. Strangely, such large gatherings for which guests converge from many parts of the country and increasingly the globe create a certain intimacy, despite the forced gaiety. In between bites of chicken tikkas and golden fried prawns they casually toss off bits of gossip about the boldface names as gospel truth: a prominent politician is having an affair with a television personality, a married actor turning gay, the latest squeeze of a flamboyant industrialist, what’s really happening in the Gandhi household.

New MBAs
Who knows? And who really cares about the actual truth of the matter. It is agreeable time-pass, forgotten as soon as the dessert comes. But, occasionally, somebody inadvertently drops a nugget of an observation that sets you thinking. The conversation turns to the importance of appearance in negotiating upward mobility, or just plain mobility. “There is a new set of MBAs in town. I call them the Marriage and Bhog Attendees. In the morning they wear a pale lipstick, skip the mascara, put on discreet pearls and wear elegant white or cream outfits. Come evening the lipstick turns several shades darker, the eye shadow and mascara come on and the clothes go all colourful and bling. You see bhogs and chauthas are good places to network. Everybody is captive in one place for a while. The BBMs are switched off at least during funeral functions. And weddings are ideal for flirting with somebody else’s husband or for catching the eye of a prospective boyfriend or husband.”

The well-seasoned, well-travelled woman entrepreneur dispensing gyaan about social mores and changing lifestyles is on to something. A few fashion designers are already on to catering for the quick-change needs of women-on-the-move. Ritika Basin offers ‘gowns-cum-suits’ that can be draped either way. An outfit can be worn as a salwar-kameez suit for kirtans and chauthas, or with some deft draping it can metamorphose into a gown suitable for evening cocktails – a bit like Superman emerging out of his drab suit and flying off into the sky with his cape flapping in the wind. Our overseas desis aren’t to be left behind. Shops in the United States advertise kirtan suits. In some advertisements kirtans are described as ‘stress-busters’ and appear to be popular with both our NRI brethren and those without genetic ties to India.

Chautha saris
Back home, pragmatism is gaining ground. I know of several clever mamas who have begun to include designer chautha saris or ‘suits’ in the trousseaus of their daughters. You never know when you will need one. And, heaven forbid if you turned up at a ceremony in a drab hand-me-down. Look around at funerals and you can usually spot a beautifully embroidered white-on-white tightly fitted, slit to the waist kurta with a designer salwar or harem pants – or elegantly embroidered saris in white or cream. Not to be left behind a few men, venture beyond Fab India, with embroidered white-on-white or fashionably pleated kurtas.

Marriages and funeral ceremonies have probably always doubled as social occasions – sites for networking and match-making. Traditionally, they have been sombre occasions. However, increasingly you come across designer chauthas and prayer meetings. Choreographed weddings are now old hat: it is the turn of choreographed funeral ceremonies. There is an aesthetisation of grief. I remember the first ‘aesthetic’ condolence meeting I came across some years ago. It was in the auditorium of the Chinmaya Mission, a lovely building on the fringes of Delhi’s majestic Lodhi Gardens. Hung vertically down the backdrop of the stage were a couple of elegant handloom saris -- the kind you come across in a textile museum. The flowers were white, elegant and expensive. The music subdued; the silence eloquent.

Tastemakers had obviously been behind the scene then. But they appear to be much busier these days. Like everywhere else, the competitive spirit (how to go one better) has stealthily crept in here as well. A friend, who specialises in doing flowers for weddings and birthdays and, occasionally, for funerals and memorial functions, tells me that her clients have become far more demanding about ceremonies related to funerals. “They want bigger and bigger lilies. The candles are becoming taller and taller. My clients specify the exact height they want. They want more and more flowers. Some want more exotic flowers.” She isn’t complaining: business is booming.

Reason to party
Mourners increasingly seek the better-known singers for the occasion. There is even budding competition over the food being served after the official function is over. Not too long ago, small bottles of mineral water and some prasad sufficed for those who had come to mourn the recently departed. Today, chauthas have become celebrations of sorts, with mini-banquets laid out. You can go ‘ethnic’ with dosas, idlis and upma or cosmopolitan with thinly-sliced sandwiches and little vol-au-vents.

Why not – births, marriages, deaths – they are all a part of life. And reason to party, occasionally network or even subtly canvas votes. Indelibly imprinted in my mind is the image of a prominent minister. There he would be, hands joined in greeting, soulfully wishing those streaming out of funerals. He was more visible when elections were around the corner.

The blossoming MBA brigade has cottoned on to something.

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