India's opulent weddings have its central bank worried

LETTER FROM INDIA: INDIA'S LAVISH and often outlandish weddings have the country's central bank concerned.

Last week the bank issued a public appeal against using banknotes in marriage garlands, decorating wedding podiums or for showering on guests, as all such usage wore out the currency, perpetuating a shortage.

In an official statement, it declared that banknotes should be "respected" as they were a sovereign symbol and it advised the public not to "misuse" them, thereby extending their life.

In the previous financial year ending March 2007, India's central bank had shredded soiled notes worth over INR480 billion (€7.6 billion), a large proportion of which are believed to have been used at weddings, cutting short their anticipated life span.

But consumers, now at the tail end of this year's wedding season, disagree.

Delhi housewife Dolly Gupta says garlands of currency notes were a part of Indian wedding tradition.

"They are considered auspicious, but we should ensure that all the notes stitched with flowers remain intact," Gupta says, echoing innumerable others who reject the bank's advice as India's booming economy spreads prosperity, thus rendering weddings unbelievably opulent.

Over the past decade, elaborate marriage ceremonies have become the leitmotif of India's burgeoning middle-classes who aggressively utilise them to showcase their wealth, aided in many instances by event planners whose numbers have concurrently mushroomed over the past decade.

The ostentation and revelry increasingly associated with Indian weddings had turned it into an industry annually valued at more than $15 billion. Commodity analysts maintain that the rising demand for gold jewellery this wedding season has hiked the metal's price to a 25-year high.

India remains the world's largest consumer of gold, primarily because of the vast amounts gifted during the six-month long marriage season between October and March each year.

Many opulent households display vast amounts of gold jewellery presented to the bride, fostering a competitive spirit between relatives and guests. Bridal trousseaus in many middle and upper middle-class families cost tens of millions of rupees, while accompanying dowries can be several times that amount.

India's underground black economy of undeclared assets, estimated to equal if not surpass the country's gross domestic product, is also responsible for triggering such inflated expenditure on weddings.

Indian weddings defy a single description.

Depending on the region, religion and caste, they can vary from a few hours to several days of unbridled revelry for hundreds of guests feasting on esoteric delicacies flown in from around the world and highly expensive imported wines and spirits.

This crass competitiveness has spawned varied service providers, of which there are more than 10,000 in India's financial capital, Mumbai, alone.

They offer expertise in venue decor, wedding clothing and jewellery acquisition, music management, entertainment, honeymoon travel and video filming, in addition to a growing list of other options.

A successful Mumbai wedding planner Nitinn Raichura says: "Nowadays we see new lighting techniques, exotic flower decorations and elaborate structures simulating exotic locales like forts, palaces and beach fronts that people want."

Others say Bollywood's glitz determines wedding styles with make-up artists of leading stars much in demand.

Many weddings planners stay on top of their game by keeping abreast of Bollywood's latest releases, duplicating for their clients all their glitz, glamour and glory.

Innumerable social wannabes strive via such competing extravagance to make it to proliferating newspaper and magazine society pages, featuring in which has increasingly become a barometer of social "arrival".

Organising a wedding in India begins with the most world's most formidable customer: the mother-in-law, most of whom settle for only the very best for their offspring.

Traditionally among India's majority Hindu community, the grooms' parents specify their requirements; but it is the bride's side that picks up the tab, making it in many cases a battle of the titans between the respective mothers-in-law.

The show for the wealthy begins with the wedding invitations, which are more often than not accompanied with a gold sovereign, or at least an expensive silk stole or fine woollen shawl.

The wealthier grooms opt for horse-drawn carriages and even a string of elephants to weave their way to elaborately decorated venues which are awash with sumptuous offerings.

Recently there have even been instances of grooms arriving in helicopters that also shower the guests below with a seemingly unending supply of scented rose petals.

"At any of these shows, nobody would believe that India is a poverty-stricken country, over two-thirds of whose population live on less than a dollar a day," says Neel Kamal Puri, an incredulous college lecturer.

"They are more akin to cruel fairy tales than weddings," she grimaces.