A SMALL part of me agrees with actor Noman Ijaz who took to Instagram to criticise Anant Ambani’s wedding. The family spent their own money so they should be able to enjoy it however they want, he wrote. I thought this at first when I rolled my eyes at the wedding footage in March, but then got the creeps from the sheer spectacle on display last month. I disagree with Ijaz when he said, “You should pray you have that kind of money for that kind of wedding”.

Um… I think going beyond your means when planning a wedding is still a cause of so many problems in the subcontinent. The poor go into debt; the rich go absolutely nuts.

I think the word ‘shaadi’, which means both marriage and wedding, is another issue, because they are not the same. There is a whole industry in Pakistan that prepares the rich and wannabe rich for marriage: choreographers, make-up artists for the bride and groom’s parties, photographers, video filmmakers who then post slickly edited films on social media. The focus has shifted to getting the right shot(s) for Instagram, and now includes invitations telling guests what colours to wear to what events.

Ijaz did not comment on this part of the industry. He was responding to actor Arsalan Naseer who made fun of the fact that relationships don’t last as long as this Ambani wedding. This was one of the nicest comments about an event that is still ongoing. After an engagement party in January, a pre-wedding party in March where Rihanna performed for $5 million, a European cruise in Italy in May, a masked ball also in May in France, then back to Italy for an evening event where Andrea Bocelli performed, and the actual wedding in Mumbai, there is probably something happening in London now.

The wedding was less a celebration of love and more a display of power.

It’s Ambani’s choice to put on a rather crude display of wealth, but let’s not forget how he got here – reportedly by getting contracts, raw materials and protected land for a gratuity, and by pandering to politicians to get loans waived. He’s gamed the system, but people in power love that he’s making India look good because he’s raking in the big bucks.

This wedding was less a celebration of love and more a show of power and influence. I understand that a shaadi is more about two families than about the individuals. That’s probably why we call it an arranged marriage, as opposed to a love marriage, which means families don’t get any benefits.

Everyone knows that Ambani spent $600 million on this wedding, but I wonder what he – and India plus its billionaires – will earn as a result of this wedding.

If Jamnagar airport was declared an international airport in March to accommodate guests like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, imagine what else would be possible for tycoons.

An Oxfam report last year said that India’s richest one percent owned 40% of the country’s wealth. I was shocked to read an article in Time magazine that reported “that the gap between India’s rich and poor is now so wide that by some measures there was more equality in India under British colonial rule than there is today,” and called it a “Billionaire Raj.”

According to LiveMint, Indians spent $75 billion on the luxury wedding market last year, and the organization predicts that the market could grow by 7 to 8 percent annually.

The message is clear: spend big, reap big, whether it’s financial or social capital or further developing how great India is.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and think ‘this isn’t us’, let me just add: I’ve seen a video of a bride making a grand entrance on a crane. And then there’s a groom who arrived on a caged lion in 2017. A quick search for ‘Pakistan’s most expensive weddings’ tells a tale of the marriage of political and corporate interests and features destination weddings, lots of bling and a groom’s arrival in a helicopter.

The real story is about rising economic inequality. The number of Indians living below the poverty line will be 10.2% of the population in 2023, according to the World Bank, compared to 37.2% in Pakistan. There is a boiling undercurrent of anger that no one can do anything about, except political slogans. Power (read: wealth) remains in the hands of a very small circle and their children are bartered in marriages to maintain that structure.

There is never any mention of wealth redistribution. How can that be in an oligarchy? Instead, we are all fixated on “this new level of rich people watching,” as Leanne Delap wrote in the Toronto Star, but I assure you it is not harmless fun. It is a reminder that such weddings are a symptom of our rotten system that is begging for an overhaul.

The writer is a journalism teacher.

X: LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, July 28, 2024