A wedding invitation bearing my name ‘& family’ came my way. And ofcourse, i went.

And brought to mind typical weddings and their decorations back in Madurai. The Mumbai wedding is slightly different. It retains all the glitz and is a little more racy. The eye is on the watch and the thought is with the 9.07 PM local that needs to be ‘caught’.

But the point is this. That across India, for every marriage, many converge. And each wedding is a very typical, Indian moment. For every marriage, many converge. ( usually in multiples of many hundreds). All eat. Most see. A few wish. Some other wedding ‘proposals’ exchanged.

Everybody gets photographed and videographed. And form a queue that will walk upto the bride and groom to gift or thust a cover (ofcourse with cash inside ) into a sweaty palm of a tense bride. Or groom, for that matter.

When feisty youth used to course my veins i used to abhor attending weddings. For it was the time when the other ‘uncles and aunties’ would be concerned about what i was doing.

Which was exhibited with a casual question on ‘how much do you make ‘ as though it was the number of dosas that had gone in since morning. (And in any case, the question rather had been about the dosas).

And ofcourse, that was followed by a by-the-way comment about how their son was was basking in the Mediterranean and the daughter was waxing eloquence in London or someplace else, you only saw on National Geographic.

But the point is this. That the great Indian wedding is an inescapable part of us. There is music. There is dance. There are pretty women. And handsome men. And ofcourse, some great food.

And in the midst of all the din & decoration, often less talked about is the good that it does to economy. For the wedding season spurs many businesses on. From the decorator to the dance party, everybody makes some dough. And by the way, the jeweller is not someone that i am going to talk about.

This picture landed in my in-box from a friend, who wanted to establish that the recession was far away from ‘happening’ in Kerela’s weddings. Now, this surely had my eyes perk, and the ears twitch.

What the world wears for its wedding is a matter of personal choice and consequently – none of my business.

But you know…i am just concerned. Of the neck.