Shaadi business

Union sports minister M S Gill’s propensity to use marriage as a metaphor reflects the general Indian interest in matters nuptial. If it is not Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s speedy wedding, then it is the southern scions Rohan Murty and Lakshmi Venu’s impending marriage. It could be explained away as a momentary virus, but the fact is, from celebrity link-ups to corporate mergers, we Indians love the shaadi business. Marriages, after all, are as much an industry as they are an institution. There are reams of advertising to find matches, countless people base their livelihood on the millions of marriages that take place in this country, and everyone agrees it is the one rite of passage in an Indian’s life when there are no budgets, no accountability and no deadlines. Is it any wonder then that the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) are compared to a wedding — by minister and the Opposition alike? BJP MP Kirti Azad’s elliptical description of the CWG as a ‘big, fat Indian wedding without the bridegroom’ is obviously an allusion to Mr Gill’s plea that “The bridegroom’s party is at the doorstep, we should go and welcome it, bring the party home” .

Even L N Mittal, the richest Indian in the world, only splurged around Rs 300 crore for his daughter’s wedding in 2004 and Chelsea Clinton’s ‘royal’ ceremony this month cost under $5 million. So what is to be made of Union urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy’s contention that “If you furnish and paint your house before your daughter’s wedding, then the money spent on that cannot be said to be part of the dowry” ? Most weddings do not run up bills anywhere close to the Rs 28,054 crore that Mr Reddy has sought to explain away to Parliament as CWG bandobast cost, of which Rs 16,560 crore went to the Delhi government to upgrade infrastructure and build sporting facilities. If that is ‘furnishing and painting’ , what is the dowry?