Band Baaja –Bakwas

Women’s day again.

Last month I was in an auto travelling from Majestic Circle to Yediyur Lake, as we drove along we crossed a wedding hall where the floral decoration of the previous wedding was being taken out, and thrown on the roadside, this was being picked by rag pickers. Simultaneously decoration for the next event was being put.

“50,000/Rs. for the decoration amma, 50,000/Rs. on flowers which is thrown in 8hrs. It seems so criminal, when 50,000/Rs is the annual income of many families.” Commented the auto driver. How right.

Being a wedding planner has become a career option, with planning destination wedding, hiring actors to play relatives of the bride and groom, I have met people in Kurushetra who have this “season mein shaadi mein kaam karte hain” careers where affluent Delhiwallah’s, or NRI’s actually hire people to fill in various roles. Kalpana a friend of mine who drifted into wedding planning says,”HumTum tarah maduve beku” that the wedding has to be like the one in HumTum.

Gauri someone or the other was presenting her point of view about how TV serials are reflections of life. Well then the world is a dangerous morbid place that we live in.

Constant bombardment of certain issues does create a cult and newer attitudes.

When we were young a orthodontist was consulted only if the occlusion was very bad or aesthetics was really bad. A  prosthodontist when you fractured or lost your tooth. Dentistry has advanced far ahead. But it is not dentistry I am talking about here; I am talking about the loud lifestyle that we seem to be adopting.

The Hindi movies, and serials, show dowry deaths, humiliation of the girl’s parents because wedding was not arranged well enough, or unreasonable demands from the groom’s family to the girls. This could be reality. But it is also creating a lifestyle trend.

The TV show Band Baja Bharaat, chooses small town girls, of upper middle class families this creates a subtle want initially, then becomes a trend until it becomes mandatory. Gauri whosoever was very clear the purpose of the serial was to make the viewer go and buy the product, expensive jewellery, clothing and travel, are the sponsors. The show ends with the hosts talking about honeymoon plan.

The marriage begins after this… probably next move would therapy vouchers for NDTV sponsored relationship counsellors, some out of work actor would always be there who did Psychology in standard 12 and a few weeks course on spiritual buzzwords.

I won’t even talk about things like the costumes that are designed. The very sanctity of the wedding is lost, a whole lot of money blown on nothing. Maybe it is time we took a good look at what we really want as a society before letting US returned MBA’s create content for us.