Sunil Sethi: The New Indian Marriage Act

AL FRESCO

When Mira Nair made her award-winning movie Monsoon Wedding she said it was meant to be a reality check on opulent Bollywood blockbusters that centred on the theme of Indian weddings. That reality check has been knocked by the fantasy of the real thing. The new Indian Marriage Act has never been so big, rich or splashy. Ever since steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal unleashed a $60 million spectacle for his daughter's wedding in Paris in the summer of 2004 (flying in 1,000 guests with the full Bollywood brigade for festivities that culminated at a 17th century chateau) Indians at home have control.

Indian weddings are now by far the biggest social industry, conceived, planned and executed as mammoth entertainments to beat any plaster-and-plywood epic that the film industry can imagine. The age of guilt (with government restrictions on the number of guests or consumption of liquor) has been replaced by pure unabashed gilt.

"All we get in the West is a plain white card," said a wide-eyed European expatriate's wife the other day, showing off a rich haul of gifts that arrive as announcements for impending nuptials. An invitation is no longer just an invitation, with a few laddoos thrown in. It comes like a synopsis to a TV serial or an art exhibition by M F Husain. And designer gifts to go with designer cards""boxes of handmade truffle chocolates, silver photo frames, thalis covered in gold embroidered red velvet, Japanese vases and even (for a recent wedding in Delhi) an elegantly-bound special edition of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, in its own case.

Professional event managers have replaced the few energetic family members who used to put together a happy, intimate gathering of close friends and kin. Wedding planners include decorators to design a specific "look" for the serial entertainments""marquees drip chandeliers, disco strobes, revolving spotlights, and DJs with flashing consoles go over by the stage and hip dancers with cordless mikes gyrate on the floor to get the crowd going.

A young graphic designer I know, with a degree from a well-known foreign art school, says profit margins in designing company newsletters or logos are depressingly low; he's now engaged full time in designing weddings rather than annual reports. "It's adventurous, fun and budgets can be stretched. It's a happiness industry and so there are fewer complaints. Also, it's a business that can only grow". His recent assignments have included travelling to a potter's village in Rajasthan to commission outsize urns, spray paint entire plant nurseries and match the pattern on the table napkins with the bridegroom's achkan.

Interestingly, the film industry, which helped turn fantasy into reality, is now one of the main beneficiaries of the new Indian Marriage Act. Actors and playback singers earn more from performing at weddings than in films. Shahrukh Khan recently said that he made films only for pleasure; his main sources of income came from endorsements and performing at functions. Top fashion designers say that they earn more from a few outfits during the wedding season than from several months of retailing. "Wedding clothes are India's answer to Western couture," says Rohit Bal.

The catering industry is leading the gravy train. Twenty years ago there were just a handful of specialist wedding caterers in Delhi. Now there are hundreds. Well-known foodies, even food columnists, are said to be roped in to plan rare and innovative menus. At a recent wedding a map of India stood proudly at the entrance to the dining area, pinpointing the regions from which food was being served. Guests flitted from tables titled "Goa", "Bengal" and "Kerala".

I once heard a London-based Sindhi socialite, heir to a made-in-Nigeria fortune, loudly complain that the word she heard most in India was "national". "For God's sake, when will India go international?"

The Indian wedding truly has. The rate at which foreign food, chefs, designs and celebrities now feature, make Monsoon Wedding look dated""a sepia-toned wedding picture from long ago.