In the whole Indian marriage set up, the single most wasteful expenditure must easily be the money coughed up for getting the whole thing captured on tape or DVD. But sadly, together with the loud light music troupe and carved vegetables, the videographers complete the three most integral components of any wedding happening right now in India. Besides saving the memories for purposes of unleashing upon unsuspecting guests at a later date, the lensmen serve two other critical objectives: trip every well dressed lady with their criss-crossing cables and block everyone's view of the ongoing ceremony. As a result, the couple enter wedlock, blissfully unaware of the pandemonium breaking out just beyond the human wall of the cameramen and their crew (the lightmen who ensure that the dais is always a pleasant 45 deg C and the cable guys who, unsurprisingly, are exponents of the fine art of bamboo dancing). As the bride and the groom take their first steps in matrimonial union and as their parents heave a sigh of relief and perhaps wipe that tear of joy, gold laden ladies go down in a cloud of fine kanjeevaram and perfume and the thathas and paattis and the aged clansmen (who would have held the wedding couple in their arms when they bore a striking resemblance to a footlong Subway sandwich on parmesan oregano) feebly hurl their share of the akshadai in the general direction of the trouser seats of the camera crew hoping fervently that at least their blessings are potent enough to penetrate the wall.
For a while, the viedogprahers' domination over any and all domestic functions starting from a kaadhu kuthal to the wedding was complete. But with camcorders coming within the expanding reach of the middle class, the smaller functions have been liberated from their grip. People woke up to the reality that jerky zooms and spooky lighting notwithstanding, that otherwise useless cousin/friend can capture it for free. Why pay Vel Videos a small fortune? But when it comes to the big daddy of all functions, the wedding, the professional camera guys still call the shots around the hall. In true Seinfeld style, if aliens were watching a wedding ceremony, they will have enough reason to conclude that the cameramen are the highest life forms on earth - they are the closest to the action, they create a powerful glow, occupy the best seats in the house. And, to remove any doubt, the guests throw flower petals at their rear ends.
The wedding memories, burned into 2 sets of DVDs, are relived exactly once: to verify that the special effects requested for are in place before settling the cameraman's bills. I'm talking about the bride's pancaked face coming bouncing in from the top right of the screen or the groom's image spinning at 4200 rpm and coming to rest in a heap at the bride's feet to the accompaniment of the hottest item number from the latest release. Once verified, they are promptly archived in the shelves marked "Ewww...never again." (As I type this, the fruitless search to locate our missing wedding DVD is now over an year old.)
On a related note, and I know this is going to make me sound ancient, the advent of the camera phones has led to every one in possession of one whipping it out to capture everything from the swami porappadu from the local temple to his friend's daughter's first sneeze. Nobody seems interested in experiencing any unfolding event with their own eyes and enjoy it anymore. Hands that once instinctively tapped the cheeks when they saw a swami porappaadu now reach for the pocket instead, to fish out that Nokia or Sony Ericsson. The motive is simple. If it is worth seeing, it is worth blocking the next person's view and recording. Any event has to be first captured rather than be experienced. And with the satisfaction that they have it stored as a bunch of bytes, go about ignoring it.
Against this backdrop, the program namma veettu kalyanam on Vijay TV seems to bluntly suggest that the creative juices, and I'm using this term very loosely, have run dry. When you are harvesting wedding videos for anything outside of the realms of "America's Funniest Videos", the programming head honchos might as well say, "Guys, this is it. We, as a team, admit that we have lost it. We've officially hit rock bottom and can't get any lower in trying to fill 30 minutes of air time."
For the uninitiated, this program chronicles celebrity weddings with the aid of their wedding videos and ample insight provided by the principal participants of the said wedding. Celebrities of "I've been in the audience for a reality show once in 2006" fame and insight as in regurgitating the minutiae of their wedding arrangements.
As a sidenote, Vijay TV can be charged with grooming the most "celebrities on tap" via the reality/talent show participant --> winner --> compere --> own show --> celebrity grind. Or the much quicker I'm a washed up movie star --> TV stardom is my entitlement regimen. I'm looking at you Radhika, Kushboo and Anu Hasan. But back to the story.
Mr and Mrs. Have beens sit down to walk us through their wedding. Of particular interest is when they throw light on the many and unique difficulties that they had faced en route to the altar.
- We had planned for 900 guests and 1300 turned up. But the chef somehow scrambled to fix dinner for everyone.
- He had chosen a mauve shirt that didn't complement my beige saree and we had to rush to change his shirt the night before. It got us all tensed up...
- Star X was away in shooting and could not attend. We were devastated. But he called up to wish us afterwards.
And with the inevitable inter-caste/religious marriages, the whole "I wasn't familiar with their customs" routine gets played out. "I'm a Nattukottai Chetty with just a faint suggestion of Nadar while he is an orthodox Syrian Christian with 2 tbsp of Jat somewhere in the lineage and we got married in a rundown synagogue...." OK, may be not that exotic but you get the general drift.
The next time this show comes on, I'm going to hunt for my own wedding DVD.
