Dear Sir/ Madam,

I am hoping that you have forgotten that you had asked me not to write letters to you. This matter is very very urgent.

1. Actually, I am writing this on behalf of my friend who will remain unnamed . She wants a ban on opulent weddings. She pointed out that how Bollywood and in particular some directors, who I do not want to give free publicity by naming them , are destroying the simplicity and charm of Indian weddings. I fully agree with her and many of my FaceBook and Whatsapp friends also agree. If such people have a consensus on some matter, it is indeed an important matter that deserves national attention.

   After Margazhi gets over, everyone seems keen to get some of the long postponed weddings done. I have already received invitations for several weddings.. With this COVID vetalam coming back as Omicron, the matter of big gatherings has become a big risk . We have to stop big fat weddings.

   Talking about big fat weddings, here is a small discussion I had with Mangalam about the recently concluded Vicky-Katrina wedding.

   Mangalam (MB) : I am so excited.. At last the marriage photos of Katrina are getting leaked.

   J Bhoothalingam ( JB) : Wedding photos, not marriage photos.. Wedding is the event and marriage is a relationship.

   MB : OK, OK.. In Tamil, don't we use Tirumanam and Kalyanam interchangeably.

   JB: You know your Tamil better.

   MB : Old man, did you see the wedding photos of Katrina, I forwarded to you.. How gorgeous she looks in the wedding dress ?

   JB : Who did she get married to ?

   MB : Vicky Kaushal. Another actor.

   JB : Oh that boy, that sad 'Aiyo Paavam" boy we saw in Masaan. He looked so innocent in Raazi also... He got Katrina... I now have some hopes for our son Jan.

   MB : Vicky is not "aiyo paavam" types. He is one of the rising stars. He is also not some poor boy from small town trying his luck in films. He is from a proper Bollywood family. His father is a well-known Stunt Director.

   JB: Fight Master chollu... Looks like these Fight Masters sons end up getting top heroines... Isn't Ajay Devgan also a son of a Fight Master ?

   MB : I am happy for Katrina, at last she has got married and is now settling down... After her affairs with Salman and Ranbir , I thought she was unlucky in love.

   JB : What mannangkatti love or mariage means to these people ? As if she was having only Kababs-Biryani with Salman and Pasta & wine with Ranbir.

   MB : That is none of our business.

   JB : Problem is they have made their weddings a business. I don't know about this one. I am observing from the Priyanka Chopra, Deepika weddings... They create a huge build-up before the wedding in media and social media. About the venue, guest list, food menu..small small bits of trivia are released gradually... Which designer is designing the Mehndi dress and which one for the Ladies Sangeet ? ... The design of the wedding cake and the size of the solitaire which the bride will wear ...All the fans are imagining the stars wedding just like the big-fat weddings they show in Bollywood films..

   MB : They are rich.. They want to spend their money on a once-in-a-lifetime event..

   JB : This whole event is a promotional event for the designers, jewellers, wedding planners and the resort...The whole expense of the wedding is fully recovered and perhaps they can even make a tidy profit by selling the photos and videos to the TV and tabloids.

   MB : They are smart isn't it... They are having a good time and someone else is paying for it.

   JB : My problem is that they are setting bad examples... Young people all over India want to have weddings like these Bollywood stars... Dress, decoration, events are all done to look good on photos and videos. Three day weddings that had got reduced to one-day event in our circles are now back to three day events because of this influence... Ladies Sangeet, Mehndi were they ever part of our South Indian culture. ? Remember, when we went to my friend Somu's son's wedding , I could not recognise Somu... He was wearing some funny looking Manyavar Sherwani and churidar...The turban was falling all the time.. He would have looked so much better wearing a jibba and a veshti...Poor guy...

   Even, if you think that this is just some new fashion that I don't like, like young people putting tattoos .. What I really see a big problem is how the wedding budgets have gone haywire ? My friends are spending their life's savings on a three-day event, just to keep up with these fashions.

   MB : You are back to your lecture mode...I love these weddings..3 days of great fun.. If you want to complain, you write a letter to Hindu

   So here I am writing this letter to urge all the Hindu readers to stop having these Bollywood style weddings. If you cannot make money out of your wedding like these celebrities, you have no business spending a fortune on them.

   One way the authorities can help is keeping and enforcing an upper limit on the number of guests that can attend a wedding. This will keep the expenses down and also reduce the risk of COVID.

   Yours in exasperation

   J Bhoothalingam