Dr Asangba Tzudir
The wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant was described as India’s “wedding of the year” and “India’s own royal wedding.” The New York Times described it as introducing “the world to [India]’s Gilded Age. Estimates for the wedding cost range from $300 to $600 million which drew sharp criticism of wealth inequality in India. However, without going into the details of their wedding and also the criticism on wealth inequality, one cannot compare the Naga wedding with the Ambani wedding, but within the Naga context and also without such labeling, the Naga weddings in general are no less, especially ‘some’ Naga weddings that really prepares the ‘stage’ to say “I Do.”
Naga weddings today have become such a costly affair made more costly in the pursuit of adding unnecessary wants. Weddings are a once in a lifetime event and who would not like to make it large, fat and memorable. Now who puts a limit on a wedding, and some may even say that a wedding can be big provided they can afford it and that it should not end in a painful debt. Irrespective of the affordability, our understanding of the idea of ‘making it large’, needs a shift from the material to the spiritual, for nothing can be bigger than God’s presence and His showers of blessing than a wedding that is defined by the number of big shots that attended the wedding and the material elements that goes into the making of a big wedding.
What can be more insulting to the Holy Vows is that the wedding nights are often marked by ‘partying’, seemingly indicating that the Holy Vows taken before God and Man as witness expires its validity right after the wedding ceremony. This is also indicative of the fact that weddings have lost its real value, meaning and essence from a Christian lens. For instance, the invitation to a wedding is not just simply an invitation to attend the wedding but called as a ‘witness’ to the Holy vows taken before God and Man. Yet, the ‘mortal human’ tries to make it big and pompous going beyond meaning and essence, that the purpose of being called as a witness to the Holy vows get transported to an invitation to witness the wedding ceremony and the larger and the more important material show. So, what good is a costly beautiful wedding card if it does not have the content and the purpose for which one is invited to the wedding, for it is not simply an invitation to grace and bless the couple but the vows are taken before God and man as witness? The trend is now set within a human standard rather than God’s in defining a big, fat, grand wedding, that it is almost equated as ‘sin’ to fall below this standard.
The Naga weddings need a paradigm shift from the material celebration to the meaning and purpose. Marriage is a solemn and an honorable occasion, but finds defiled with not so ‘honorable’ things while being loaded in material glamour. When God is made the center of the marriage, it then becomes honorable and meaningful, while the rest do not matter, and which will also be soon forgotten. At the end of the day, what matters most is not the dress, or the food or the decorations but the vows one commit before God and man. As religio-moral beings and going by the present trend of pompous weddings, there is a lot of rethinking to be done. A complete lowering of the unnecessary sound cannot be expected but even a decibel lower can make a huge difference. A change in mindsets can create the desired ripple effect. A lot of things may go into the material preparation but what is more important is to prepare the heart to commit to the holy vows that will last a lifetime, the rest expires soon after.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir writes guest editorials for The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)