Marriage Memorabilia

The heading sounds more like memories down the marriage album. But it is much beyond that. This comes straight fom the marriage ceremonial gallore in the Indian society. "Marriages are made in heaven and celebrated on earth". It's quite true to it's meaning. Celebration is an understatement for all that goes into the pre & post marital ceremonies in India. The exhibition of the riches and the innumerous days spent in arraning the ostentation comes out as the most important thing in one's life. The more one spends on embellishments, food, jewellery, attire, the more worthy he proves to be.

With the status quo raising it's bar from year to year, the celebrity marriages are looked upto as the quintessentials. Ironically not because of the celebrities and the glamour but the gallore of lip-smacking cuisine, lighting, embellishment, celebrity performers, the bejewelled attires etc. This pandemonium could cost anything between 10 Lakhs - 10 Crores. And it doesn't end here...

The wedding day attire could range anywhere from 25 thousand-25 lakh depending on which celebrity wore it in which movie and what is the latest craze, a fish cut top or a halter neck. From the backless blouse of Madhuri to the fish cut kurti of Kareena, from Bipasha's gown to Aishwarya's jewellery, the bridal attire has seen it all and transition is inevitable.

To add to this this the gourmet gallery also ranges from Chinese, Continental, Italian, Indian, Thai, Lebanese etc. All sorts of cuisine cooked by the likes of Sanjeev Kapoor, Tarla Dalal or even super-chefs flown from US/UK to grace the kitchen.

The over-booked parlours smelling of perfumes, shampoos, hair-sprays, facials & other beauty treatments, even promise the bride looks of Kareena, Karisma, Bipasha, Priyanka on a high-budget beauty packages.

The rituals and mantras left to us by our mantras by our ancestors and which were followed by people diligently have evaporated leaving behind a mockery in place. The high budget packages of the priests include visiting charges and darning the occasion with their presence, thats it. Sadly enough the focus now lies not on the happy and prosperous married life, the divine bond has no meaning. What has taken it's place is the ceremony and the efforts put behind it to make the D-Day successful.

Mistakes...

Just finished reading Chetan Bhagat's "The 3 mistakes of my life". I guess its quiet evident from the heading. Though this might be influenced bythe same, but I don't intend to write another one. Don't carry the audacity to do so. Since I have read all three books writen by him I think I can comment that this one is easily the best of his works. In the backdrop of Gujarat & it's episodes of earthquake and Godhara riots the brewing business of three friends intertwined with their personal lives is very stricking. Anyways coming back to the main topic, looking back at life, I sometimes feel, we spend half our lives recollecting our mistakes and grow up reading in books and listening from people that one should learn from them. But do we actually do that??? Who cares... We tend to dismiss all of them as either inexperience or mere experiments. But truely some of them cost a lot in our lives and remain unanswered as to why such a thing happened or was it really a mistake? Is it a mistake when you seem to have found friends for life & suddenly when you need them, they back-stab you? You get married to someone you have known for years and made promises for a lifetime but you don't get the love and warmth in return that you are seeking in the relation? You work hard and slog yourself for hours together to get a promotion and your unworthy team partner gets through because of his quality of buttering his seniors, so then to work hard was a mistake.

I guess theres nothing much to learn from these so called "Mistakes". These will always remain unanswered and no one would try deciphering the problem.

Hope Around Us...

I got up one morning amidst blasts and unrest in the country. Dark clouds of fear and scepticism had filled the air. It seemed blood would trickle out of these thick clouds in the sky. Fear to step out of the houses; Fear to live blissfully; Fear to breathe; Fear of surviving. But cutting through all this was a fresh breeze of hope. Hope to live; Hope for a better tomorrow; Hope to find a better road ahead.

You , me and everybody around us take the same roads everyday. The road that takes us into our homes and out of it. When the other day I walked out of my house, towards the market for some shopping, a patch of road was being rebuild. While the fresh taurpaulin was being laid over it, what lay underneath were the cracks and the pot holes of the remains of a dead road. Further down, where the road still remained untouched revealed the imprints of the millions of footsteps and the remains of the road trampled n number of times beneath heavy vehicles. But the magical effect lies within. The road in whatever condition maybe, pushes us further and gives us a hope of moving ahead and reaching our destination someday.

Right in front of the shopping mall, the road was smooth with cars zipping on it. Though it is quite ironical but true, these roads are similar to our lives. While new opportunities and hope dawns our life what lies beneath is nothing but the past, the rough patches, the ups and downs. But we move on with a promise to surely reach our destination. What lies ahead of us is an exciting journey, ready to unveil the best. Sometimes our hopes and wishes have been marred and tramples by the selfish wants of some, but each time we strike back and move on...