Bollywood celebrity weddings are not just “marriages”, they are full-fledged events relentlessly promoting designer labels and selling lthe spectacle of a big fat Indian wedding. That to treat something as sacred as marriage, a “vivaah Sanskar” like a PR stunt itself destroys the sanctity of the ceremony is another matter altogether. But what we must also note is that Bollywood weddings act as trendsetters for the Bhartiya society. With videos and photos of what Parineeti Chopra or Katrina Kaif wore at her wedding and how the wedding decorations were like constantly in circulation even months after the wedding, a large chunk of Bhartiyas look up to these people for inspiration when it comes to planning their own weddings.
And that is precisely where the problem lies. The woke marriages of Bollywood are destroying the sanctity of the Hindu vivaah Sanskar. They are doing it so subtly that most won’t even notice. But in the name of modernity and fashion, they are dismantling the very base of the Hindu vivaah sanskar, bit by bit.
Let’s talk about the latest celebrity wedding that happened in India recently – the Parineeti Chopra & Raghav Chaddha wedding. If you look at the pictures closely, you cannot help noticing that they are trying to merge the rituals of a Christian wedding ceremony with Hindu vivaah sanskar. The bride and groom are dressed in various shades of white and they even walk down the aisle surrounded by rows of white flowers and a cheering crowd. This ritual surely doesn’t belong to a Hindu wedding ceremony. Parineeti even has her white chunni trailing on the ground as she walks in the typical fashion of the white bridal gown of a Christian bride. Now the woke lobby will say that it’s their wedding, they are just doing it their way and haters are going to hate.
All you have to do is plan a Christian wedding where the bride is dressed in a red gown with a gota patti and sporting a maang tika. Now, replace the characteristic white flowers with marigold flowers. This much is enough to anger the entire woke brigade who will start shouting that Hindus are oppressing the minorities by trying to twist their wedding rituals! But when it comes to Hindu weddings, it seems like anything and everything goes.
Bollywood is aggressively promoting the trend of Hindu brides wearing white. First, it was Alia Bhatt Ranbir Kapoor’s wedding where the “ivory gold” theme gained prominence as Alia wore an ivory gold lehenga designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Ranbir Kapoor wore a similar style outfit. Then came Parineeti Chopra’s wedding again propagating the “ivory look” of the Hindu bride. In most of these weddings, the bride isn’t wearing a bindi, the quintessential essence of the Hindu Dulhan. The traditional Hindu wedding ornaments like Nath, Hathphool, etc., are also no longer a part of the bride’s ensemble in these woke weddings.
The Bollywood Hindu weddings have been “secularized” and “wokeized” to such an extent that it’s hard to figure out who is the bride and who are the guests. The bride looks like any other lady who might have attended the function. The point is these woke weddings are stripping the Hindu bride’s attire of its specifics. And this is just the beginning.
The Hindu ceremonies will be their next target. They will soon start proclaiming that it’s no longer necessary to have the “saat phera” ceremony to solemnize a Hindu wedding. It’s an exploitative ritual, and Hindu weddings be better without it, they will soon start declaring. Allahabad High Court has now declared that Hindu marriages are not valid without “Saat Pheras”. Perhaps this proclamation comes at the right time to prevent the woke lobby from wreaking havoc with the rituals of Hindu marriages.
Visuals of Hindu brides wearing jhumar are getting quite common nowadays. Since when did Hindu brides start wearing jhumar? It’s a quintessentially Muslim bridal accessory. Now those who’ll start lecturing on secularism and broad-mindedness, how many Muslim brides have they seen sporting a bindi and a maang tika? Or how many Christian brides have they seen sporting a nath? Secularization cannot be a one-way traffic, and it can certainly not be at the expense of Hindus all the time.
Hindu wedding ceremonies are not grounds for experimentation for everyone. Traditionally, Hindu brides have been getting dressed in red or bright colors like pink, magenta, etc., so to promote Hindu bridal wear in shades of white smacks of nothing but propaganda. It is even insulting to the Hindu sensibilities. The color white in the Hindu context, is donned by widowed women. So, to dress a bride in white, even if it’s ivory and gold, is a travesty, to say the least.
The rapid secularization of Hindu weddings has a strong business angle as well. The fashion fraternity sees a huge market in the Hindu wedding scene. Thus, they are promoting all sorts of bizarre and woke trends to capitalize on this market. If you google the term “Hindu bridal wear”, you’ll see all sorts of outfits, many of which have little to do with a Hindu wedding. Most of the blouses will have real bold cuts, the outfits will have too much skin show, and generally speaking, the whole look will be that of a courtesan or a belly dancer rather than a Hindu bride (no offense intended).
Don’t get me wrong but there are many occasions to experiment and wear ultra-revealing clothing but one’s own wedding is not the place to do that. Hindu Vivah Sanskar has a certain decorum attached to it, and the designers can create stunning outfits without compromising on the tradition and the decorum part. But they seem to be completely playing into the hands of the woke lobby. As a result, Hindu weddings seem to have become the experimental ground for promoting all sorts of fashion trends.
The ironic thing though is that even as Bollywood Hindu weddings are trying hard to secularize and Christianize, Christian weddings are themselves seeing a crisis situation. A religion that destroyed indigenous cultures across the world and appropriated their customs is now getting stuck in its own web. People in the European country of Latvia are making a return to pagan customs in their wedding ceremonies.
And the Christian “progressive” fraternity doesn’t seem to be too chuffed about this! Interestingly, these ancient pagan rituals involve entering a marked circle around the fire and a large stone. The Latvian weddings inspired by Pagan rituals have the bride dressed in white and she also sports a flower wreath kind of headgear. It’s interesting to note how the Christian wedding ceremony seems to have appropriated certain customs of a pagan wedding ceremony while leaving the others. So the Christian bride can always be seen dressed in white, but you cannot see the fire ritual in any of the Christian weddings that is a strong component of wedding rituals of all ancient cultures including Hindu.
Hindus have become the favorite target of popular culture, and Hindu weddings have emerged as the greatest victim of woke propaganda against Hindu/Sanatan Dharma. There is no dearth of Bollywood movies making fun of the Hindu wedding rituals, especially the “saat pheras”. The vachanas undertaken by the bride and the groom during the pheras are interpreted rather literally and then pronounced patriarchal, condescending to women, etc. through a simplistic analysis (analysis if it can be called at all).
And now OTT shows have jumped on the bandwagon. OTT Shows like “Made in Heaven” cast their poisonous web to destroy the Hindu Vivah Sanskar both at the level of ritual and conceptually. What is the solution to all this? First is awareness; we need to be highly aware of this toxic woke propaganda and make everyone else aware of these subtle distortions. Second is counter-narrative; Hindus need to come forward to create a strong counter-narrative against the woke appropriation of Hindu marriage.
This would involve going back to the original Vedic rituals at the level of practice, popular culture portrayal, and Hindu wedding trousseau. There are multiple ways in which the Hindu bride’s dress can be modernized without destroying the essence of the traditional look. Rajputana poshaks, for example, look regal, splendid, and befitting for a Hindu bride. Why don’t Bollywood celebrities promote wedding outfits like these instead of donning ivory gold or whatever outfits? An entire ecosystem needs to be created through popular culture to challenge and overcome this distortion of the Hindu wedding.
