Click to play videoNew Delhi: The galaxy arranged itself into a moment of marriage with over 30, 000 couples in Delhi alone and many more across getting married on Wednesday.
Indian weddings now are extremely extravagant—they last for several days with many ceremonies and every ritual is often followed down to the last detail.
Is the Indian marriage losing some of its sanctity?
CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose India 360 put the question to a panelists comprising senior vice president of Jeevansathi.com, Vivek Khare, CEO of shaadionline.com, Jay Raj Gupta and filmmaker Madhurita Anand.
Is the Indian marriage no longer about the dholak and relatives but a big extravagant, entertainment bonanza?
CEO of shaadionline.com, Jay Raj Gupta said, “I think that people have always wanted to have a wedding in a nice and different manner and now they have avenues to do it. There are opportunities, they know where to go and they get things easily and that has made it a little easier to organise wedding in a nice and a different manner.”
So can people even have a Bollywood star dance for their wedding?
“People have all kinds of requests. Wedding planners are by themselves a fairly new breed and you can take their help to organise the wedding for you just like you ask an architect to build your house. We are like the architects of a wedding as we know what to do, how to do it and we know where to get the things from. We can put things together in a nice and an easy manner,” said Gupta.
Is it difficult to find the right life partner?
There are a number of people who are desperately seeking marriage. Are they, especially young women just not finding the right person to get married to?
Senior vice president of Jeevansathi.com, Vivek Khare reasoned by saying, “The expectations of young women have gone higher. They are more educated and they have needs to be assuaged before they agree to get married. They get support from their parents who say that they should take time to choose the right life partner. Internet helps them to know people better before they even meet them. It is always better to wait till you choose the right match.”
But do the people logging onto a site like Jeevansathi.com have a conservative approach? Do they want their partners to be of the same religion, caste or of the same community?
“Matrimony advertisements have always been there in India. Earlier it was in the newspapers and now it has moved to the Internet. Two kinds of people come in the Internet; one set of people look for love that they have not been able to find in the real world so they hope to find it on the net. And there is a huge chunk f people who say that the Internet has aggregated the matrimonial database,” Khare said.
Is marriage the only ticket to happiness?
With far too much hype associated with marriage, do many young people see marriage the only ticket to happiness or can they lead a happy life without marriage?
Filmmaker Madhurita Anand said, “Yes, it possible to be happy without marriage but I am saying this because I have been married. I don’t know if I would say this if I had not been married. I am married, have a fulfilled career and have a child which makes is somewhat different for me.”
Should women in particular look beyond getting married and actually look at how they can fulfill themselves and be happy?
“There is an intrinsic problem that is happening in our society today. There is chasm between the way women think and men think and this is a bad situation because their imaginations are not meeting up and there is no ground for them to come together. It is perhaps to do with the fact that we have the modern day malaise of choices and everybody wants to exercise choices. However, they are not stopping to look within but they look more towards the outside. Seeking what they don’t have in their partners is not a very good thing,” said Anand.
Is virginity the big requirement for a successful Indian marriage?
Do people especially the men logging on to the Internet to search for partners look for ‘virgin brides?’ Do they want an untouched, Convent-educated and an innocent bride?
“Most of the girls say that they are a mixture of modern and traditional values and they leave it for the ones searching to judge. With six to seven per cent of our database being divorcees the bar of tolerance has come down. If people feel that they made a mistake in a relationship then they do not want to continue with the relationship and the families support the idea,” said Khare.
So are the people who log on to the Internet losers because it is hard for them to find partners in any other way?
“Divorce has a stigma in our society so the social network is closed for the divorcees. However, if they want to get married then coming to the Internet would be helpful as they would be able to find like-minded people. Internet is also a forum for like-minded people to exchange views,” said Khare.
Are Indian weddings just a way of displaying money and glamour?
Do wedding now lose the warmth of family get together? Is the interaction that normally happens between families dying? Have weddings become a way to display one’s wealth and glamour?
“Weddings are better organised and people enjoy themselves more now but there is a loss of a certain warmth. Destinations weddings are becoming trends now in which you travel out from your city of residence to elsewhere. If a 100 to a 200 hundred travel together then they will develop a bond. Coming in contact with other families can help revive the warmth,” said Gupta.
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