The Big Fat Desi Wedding

We can all agree that Desi weddings are festive - full of color, dancing and food! There won't be a moment of boredom or lack of entertainment - it's jam-packed with hospitality, laughter and fun! But I'm here to dish out a rant and all things wrong with a Desi wedding - so look away if you signed up for the good because all I have to offer here is just plain old ugly.

What is a desi wedding, you may ask? And you’d receive a plethora of answers but to practically understand what a desi wedding is, you’d need to be in a desi setup long enough to comprehend the complexity of the matter! It’s not the three-day event or even a week-long affair - the entire ‘shaadi’ (wedding) business for a girl starts from the moment she’s born and for a boy once he’s attained a community-approved employment. And unfortunately and insanely, the entire desi culture is centered on this one simple concept of getting married!

For a girl, she needs to behave a certain way, look a particular way and even chose hobbies and friends specifically as to know what will be considered ‘appropriate’ for her later choice in marriage. A choice she’d be seldom allowed to make for its only proper for her family to take the most important decision of her life for her! We may consider that it’s the 21^st century and this may not hold true for a select few but for a majority, still, in our part of the world – girls are raised and brainwashed with the sole purpose of landing themselves in a matrimonial match and their entire personalities and attitudes are shaped to not be able to thrive on their own or be their own person, but to appeal to a future husband and his family. So the way she dresses, the way she carries herself in a social circle, the education she receives, the way she speaks – every little detail about her, has to somehow be considered appropriate enough to appeal to an ideal notion of a husband and in-laws.

For the boy, he can be his own person till the time he’s grown up enough to have a job – by then, he’s made to realize that his responsibility henceforth is to churn out enough finances to be able to look after a wife and future children, household and even, in most cases, his parents and siblings because in a patriarchal society like ours, the women, children, old parents don’t have to work – they are the sole responsibility of the man. He is the ATM of the family and since his financial standing represents power, he can reject as many girls based on the color of their skin, or the size of their thighs – and can behave as he pleases with his mom and sisters pampering him to be a spoilt grownup child and he knows not otherwise. He also, has to put aside his dreams, friends, and hobbies and be stuck in a job that provides him with enough dough to feed an entire family because without getting married, apparently, he has no life.

Surprisingly, desi weddings have little to do with the bride and groom and more to do with all those who make the effort in attending the wedding. For months at end, the stress remains on who will be attending the functions and how the presence of people genuinely signifies the success of the wedding. I’ve spent most part of this December attending weddings that seemed like one exhausting episode and I’ve categorized the type of people you’d be meeting on a desi wedding. Here goes:

1.      Bridezilla/Groomzilla

A concept not alien to weddings is for the bride or groom to lose control in an attempt to have maximum control over everything – but at a desi wedding, the ‘-zilla’ syndrome isn’t restricted to the bride or groom – it extends further. The madness can consume the groom’s mom or the bride’s sister or practically anyone who seems to be possessed with the notion of controlling even how much one is allowed to smile in a picture. The symptoms in a person are easy to identify, with the crazy eyes, the bouts of anger, the distant continuous glares and the micromanagement that extends to how loud a random guest is permissible to clap or how tolerable his/her sitting posture is. 

2.      Trainwreck

At every desi wedding, you’d have an individual or a group of people who will bring their own emotional or family drama to your event. They would unabashedly discuss their depressing matter and will go the extra mile in involving everyone in it. They’ll be discussed by practically everyone at the wedding and would receive their due share of love-mixed-with-gossip and as soon as the event ends, the attention they’d have would equally fizzle out. You’d know who they are ten minutes into the festivities, either someone will approach and gossip about them to you or desperation will make them contact you first – pretty hard to miss! 

3.      Gossipmongers

It’s like a cult that gets together before, during and after a desi wedding with an agenda to target a few abnormalities in the crowd at an event. Their sole purpose of attending a wedding is to know the dirty little secrets or the ostentatiously in-your-face display of disapproval by a few and for days at end they’d exaggerate and overstress everything that they think they know. Surprisingly what they carry is a disease that infects even the most immune and is the most sought-out crowd at any event! You’d know who they are – little people bundled together in a corner with the group increasing with every passing hour. 

4.      Thunder stealer

Desi weddings are all about dressing up and spending ludicrous amounts of money on your clothes, makeup and jewelry – and that’s not just limited to the bride and groom. For some, someone else’s wedding is the perfect time to hijack the attention and make it all about themselves. So they spend an extra amount of time and energy in an attempt to steal the bride or groom’s thunder by overdoing themselves! Does it work? Nah – at the end of the day, it’s just about the bride and groom and that’s how it should be. 

5.      The Selfie Master

So this person with an abnormally long arm and a great phone-cam will be seen bouncing from one group of people to another, taking as many selfies as his phone-capacity allows and will be a crowd favorite. It’s his time to shine and make the most out of his otherwise socially destitute life – he’d smile, click and guarantee that the groups will receive the selfies by the end of the night! He’d receive messages of ‘Hey, send me the pix’ and he’d feel wanted and accepted – only to be forgotten once the events are over. But hey, five-minutes of glory, yes?

6.      You’re Next Guy

Bearing in mind that desi weddings last over a week, it’s astounding how people have it in them to suggest another wedding WHILE attending one. And unlucky for one guy or girl, they are subjected to the persistent ‘You’re Next’ remark whenever they meet anyone at the wedding – the comment after a casual greeting is often accompanied with a sniggering giggle and the poor soul at the receiving end of it just uncomfortably smiles or says something ridiculously unacceptable that leads to a flurry of inappropriately inquisitive questions about the person’s personal life! This poor soul is either the younger siblings of the bride or groom, or sometimes even a distant cousin but boy do our Uncles or Aunties love weddings!

7.      The Respect Police

Us desis are HUGE on respect and our elders make it their lives’ mission to evaluate a person’s upbringing on how much respect they receive at a wedding. But how does one gauge respect, you may ask? For desis, its how you greet them and how often you greet them and how often you ask them if they’ve eaten, or how you insist on them being seated at the very front of the crowd – if you successfully check off all the above, you’d be marked safe by the Respect Police who make it a point to sit and monitor your greeting abilities. If you don’t comply with the standards of respect-giving, trust them to write you off as an indecent human being. 

8.      The Unhappy Toddler

At every event there’s one person who is perpetually unhappy and ensures that everyone knows that. He will complain non-stop about trivial matters, will make it his mission to instigate an emotional drama for all and will dampen everyone’s spirits by his mere presence. From complaining about the décor, to the music, to food, to everything possible – this guy knows how to throw a tantrum. You’d be unfortunate if you find yourself in this guy’s company – he’s sure to bring you down with him. 

9.      I'm SO SO Single Guy

To me, it seems that weddings bring out the worst in some people! A desi wedding is a fair field of flirtation for many who make it their mission to land themselves a partner at someone else’s wedding and they’d unabashedly chase after people with this intolerable air of vulgar flirtation and surprisingly, they’d often be victorious in their cheap endeavors! Eating, singing and dancing with the acceptance of their elders, desi weddings are the perfect place for match-making – at one end you’d have desperate aunties looking for suitable girls for their sons and at the other, you  have the sons relentlessly attempting to land themselves an unavailable hottie. Madness, madness! 

10.  The Choreographer

As the title suggests, this person has the moves – can dance for hours and is truly a puppet-master! He/she centers the entire wedding on the Mehndi function and believes firmly that there’s not much to the events other than dancing. With this in mind, he/she devotes all their time and energy in learning and teaching everyone how to dance and those who don’t comply are written off as not devoted to the wedding at all! This person is your true party-animal but once Mehndi is done, he/she is cast aside and has nothing more to look forward to. 

11.   Only There For Food

Desi weddings are incomplete without the mention of this guy who LOVES wedding-food and only shows up for it. Has little to do with any other festivity, doesn’t even know the bride/groom and solely bases his attendance at the wedding on the venue and the previously tested menu items.  You’d find this person sitting closer to the buffet table at the far end of the hall and would possibly be the last one to put his plate aside. 

There's way to much generalization here but it's all for fun and actually holds true! But considering the amount of talk and effort that goes into the ‘shaadi’ business, you'd expect for people to make sensible decisions and possibly evolve – it’s tragic really that society is rigidly fixated with the same practices and age-old traditions that only seem to be worsening with time. Pakistani weddings are elaborate to say the least and over the years, the trend to exaggerate each event in terms of grandeur and extravagance has been blown out of proportions. It wouldn’t be so ridiculous if people had the kind of money they end up spending on multiple festivities – for most, they either end up taking loans or spending all their savings on celebrations that leave only a few happy and many just gossiping. At the end, is it worth it? In the grander scheme of things, I think not.