An extract from 'India in Love'

INDIA IN LOVE marriage and sexuality in the

Ira Trivedi

21st century

THE BIGGER, FATTER MASS WEDDING

As I was to discover, Indian weddings could get much bigger than I could have possibly imagined.

Amravati is an unspectacular town. It boasts the tumult characteristic of any Indian town—stentorian car horns vying for supremacy, two- and three-wheelers swerving between cows and people, derelict buildings, shanty storefronts and colourful signage. It is the sixth most populated town in the state of Maharashtra and is conspicuous perhaps only for the Amravati Municipal Corporation, the first Municipal Corporation in India to privatize octroi, an archaic tax which, as of 2012, is levied only in Ethiopia and in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

Here in Amravati, I am attending a free-for-all marriage ceremony where an estimated 3,720 couples will be wed. I stand

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in the middle of a large field, my feet squelching in the slushy earth of the wedding grounds created at the centre of the city.

Thousands of people are here to participate, to view and to wed in what is touted to be the largest communal wedding in the history of the planet. Ravi Rana, the politician-organizer of the event, has declared that he is aiming to find a place for the mass marriage in the Guinness Book of World Records.

There is wholesale confusion as the usual shambolic state of affairs that is to be encountered at any Indian wedding is multiplied 3,270 times. Families flutter around brides and grooms, the young brides-to-be in vermilion wedding saris, and the grooms festooned with king-size headgear, dressed in gold and cream. I stand inert—lost, confused and feeling part of the chaos. I am jolted back to reality when I am almost run over by an oncoming tractor that gives a long annoyed blast of its horn and flashes its headlights at me.

The highlight and reason for this event is the marriage of Ravi Rana, the chief organizer of this event, an MLA who decided to organize the mass marriage on the occasion of his own marriage to the pretty South Indian actress Navaneet Kaur. The co-sponsor of the ceremony is Baba Ramdev, the yoga guru who rose to national fame by propagating innovative breathing techniques.

The expense for this event is estimated to be around `10 to 12 crore, which works out to approximately `33,000 per couple. This includes a free wedding ceremony, a wedding feast open to the wedding parties and their families, and also gifts for the couple.

For Rana, this is an astute political decision. There is nothing that touches an Indian heart like marriage, and he intends to capitalize on this.

The scene today in this unspectacular city is nothing less than spectacular. The Science Core grounds are huge and erected on them are hundreds of brightly coloured pandals where wedding ceremonies will take place. I peep inside one tent and see a long line of mud kunds. On either side of the kunds, grooms sit facing

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their brides who have all powdered their faces into white masks with bright red lipstick. Rana and Navaneet, the celebrity couple sit far away from the crowds, on a massive stage on which a giant mandap has been constructed. A host of celebratory figures are meant to come to the event, including top politicians, industrialists and Bollywood actors; red velvet sofas have been laid out for them.

I am lost in the mass of people. The wedding ceremony is about to begin and families, brides and grooms are rushing to the pandals. I am feeling asphyxiated by all the shoving so I fix my gaze on a giant screen showing a smiling Rana and his bride, both dressed in gold. Rana’s large nose sits like a beak above a toothy grin. Navaneet perfectly plays the part of the demure bride, looking down shyly, never bringing her eyes up to the camera.

They are bowing down to touch the feet of various VIP guests.

Baba Ramdev is dressed in saffron robes, his bare chest revealing a taut abdomen and a bony rib cage. He has a long droopy moustache, and a frightening smile. The camera zooms in. I look away. Suddenly there is a drone-like buzz in the air and several people rush towards the front of the ground. The thousand plus police who have been languorously milling around are suddenly attentive and they brandish their lathis, prodding at people for no apparent reason. It appears that the chief minister has arrived.