The 1994 family drama Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (HAHK) opens to a cricket match. The camera glides up to frame a mansion facing a ground. It바카라s decked with a pitch, wickets, and bails, rimmed by a white picket fence, spectators, and lamp posts. Without a line of dialogue, director Sooraj Barjatya establishes three key facts about the family: that it is rich, chic, and serious바카라or, well, 바카라professional바카라바카라about having fun. A family that functions as a corporation. Everyone serves a fixed function in this scene (much like a job designation): the players wear golf caps that say 바카라Boy바카라 and 바카라Girl바카라. The spectators move and cheer in unison, like coordinated robots. When a woman, a peripheral character, wants to bat, the hero, Prem (Salman Khan), mocks her and sends her away. Even though it바카라s a small, silly scene, it underscores the family바카라s ethos in precise details (confirmed by the rest of the film): that it prizes segregation and homogenisation, hierarchy and tradition.
For the next 214 minutes, the movie unfolds, in essence, as a 바카라wedding video바카라 (as it was lampooned in its initial weeks), where Barjatya inverts all the rules of a Bollywood blockbuster: no bloodshed, no conflict, no villains. Like a cola-dispensing machine, HAHK never runs out of sugar. Or affluence: its business-owning family is so rich that it has a swimming pool inside the house. Or consumption: gustatory pleasure is so ubiquitous that food appears across multiple scenes and songs (remember Chocolate, lime juice, ice cream, toffeeya?).
The gifts of economic liberalisation바카라or the lure of Western capitalism바카라pervade this family drama, sometimes straining to make a point. In an early scene, the domestic help Lallu (Laxmikant Berde), who is trying to learn English, holds a book upside down. What바카라s on its cover? Four letters in red: 바카라USSR바카라. But Barjatya would only allow a certain kind of Western dominance; he바카라d temper it, in fact, with his fixation on Indian (actually, Hindu) culture. This is a film where the bride and the groom meet for the first time in a temple, where she gets the Ramayana as a wedding gift, where characters pray (and plead) to gods multiple times.
This cultural assertion isn바카라t just pious but also melodramatic, as every conceivable wedding ritual바카라the engagement, the tilak, the shoe stealing, the bidaai바카라produces a song. HAHK was so successful and influential that it set the trend for wedding dramas featuring pomp, opulence, and religiosity. Such movies had resolved the conflict between the mandir and the market, making the former as prominent as the latter. 바카라Bollywood wedding is a specific class-based gendered response,바카라 wrote Jyotsna Kapur in a 2009 research paper, 바카라to India바카라s turn to neoliberalism.바카라
But Barjatya wasn바카라t operating in a cultural silo바카라even though his production house바카라s Nadiya Ke Paar (1982), which had the same story as HAHK, was a much modest fare바카라as plush Indian weddings trace a long history. 바카라In the Ramcharitmanas [1.92바카라 1.102, 1.286 바카라 1.342],바카라 writes Philip Lutgendorf in the paper 바카라Ritual Reverb: Two Blockbuster Hindi Films바카라 (2012), 바카라Tulsidas twice 바카라interrupts바카라 the first book with multi-page descriptions of weddings that feature feasts served on golden platters as well as such non-Sanskritic rituals as women바카라s song sessions that mock the groom and his relatives.바카라 Such descriptions, he adds, 바카라have said to influence popular practice, even becoming, in some regions, a liturgical text to accompany weddings.바카라
Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad heightened the interplay between cinema and life, providing services such as 바카라(cinematic) pre-wedding shoots바카라 and 바카라customised wedding sets (as if for the silver screen).바카라
Post HAHK, several NRI dramas revolved around weddings, even if we don바카라t remember them as such. Take the blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)바카라which tucks the word 바카라bride바카라 in its title바카라where the hero바카라s (Shah Rukh Khan) transcontinental journey, from London to Punjab, seeks to not challenge but assuage the patriarchal order. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Khan and Kajol바카라s wedding, flouting parental order, sets the central conflict. Both Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kal Ho Na Ho (2003), written by Karan Johar, derive their dramatic mileage from one protagonist facilitating the marriage of the other. Year after year, these films perfected the dance of tradition and modernity, following their progenitor바카라s footsteps. Just hear what Prem says when asked about the kind of wedding he wants: 바카라arranged love marriage바카라. Love and arranged, East and West, unending capital and patriarchal control stitched a world unto itself: spend like a baron, pray like a priest.
Once these blockbusters had devised a language, subsequent movies바카라such as Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai (2002), Hum Tum (2004), Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani (2013), and many others바카라wrote the script. And this script could be homogenised바카라tripping on uniform Punjabi bling바카라because Bollywood, too, functions like a family, a family of dynasts, who have little interest (or curiosity) beyond their own cultures. By then, it had also become a 바카라culture industry,바카라 according to film scholar Ashish Rajadhyaksha, defined by happy, feel-good dramas that underscored 바카라family values바카라 and 바카라investment in our culture바카라.
If popular Hindi cinema changed, then so did the conception of wealth among the Indian elites who, pre-economic liberalisation, felt sheepish to flaunt their riches. But in the aughts, money could buy you all바카라even a Shah Rukh Khan performance. This, too, became a trend, with other Bollywood stars entering the festivities (all at an appropriate price). The ostentatiousness of Indian weddings had reached such a high in 2007 that it compelled then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh바카라the architect of economic liberalisation바카라to comment on their 바카라vulgar display of wealth바카라바카라 that 바카라insult[ed] the poverty of the less privileged바카라 and planted 바카라seeds of resentment바카라 among the 바카라have-nots바카라.
Little did he know that the party had just begun.
Because if the Indian weddings could make the bride and groom feel like stars, then they could design appropriate 바카라mise en scĂšne바카라 justifying their Bollywood-fuelled narcissism. There was demand, and the flag bearers of 바카라sanskaari capitalism바카라 swooped in. In the late aughts, for instance, the website IndianWeddingSite.com, writes Kapur, 바카라encouraged their clients to watch Bollywood movies for inspiration, including designing outfits, staging festivities, and choreographing dance numbers바카라. And if that wasn바카라t enough, Ramoji Film City, a film studio facility in Hyderabad, heightened the interplay between cinema and life, providing a host of services, such as 바카라(cinematic) pre-wedding shoots바카라, 바카라customised wedding sets (as if for the silver screen)바카라, and 바카라mesmerising dream venues바카라.
As real-life weddings became increasingly inspired by Bollywood바카라an industry known for its broad homogenised sweeps바카라they also began to look, feel, and sound the same. Because if popular cinema had shown only a sliver of Indian culture바카라chiefly Punjabi바카라then that바카라s what the masses could copy, making an India the India, drowning out local customs and contexts. This is what 바카라cultural colonialism바카라 does: It makes you homeless in your own home. In the 1990s, for example, the sangeet ceremony was mostly part of a Punjabi wedding, but now it바카라s spread all over. My wedding too바카라which happened last month, an alliance between a Bihari and a Rajasthani바카라had a sangeet (and the juta churayi ceremony, where I paid Rs 9,000 for a Rs 3,000 shoe).
The recent Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant바카라s pre-wedding festivities바카라a dizzying confluence of business, cinema, and politics바카라finished in life what HAHK had unleashed on screen.
Two more factors, though, would alter this landscape forever, making us reach where we are today: celebrities and Instagram. Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma바카라s wedding led the way in December 2017. It popularised wedding hashtags (#Virushka), lavender and pink frames, and professional videos (shot by Vishal Punjabi, founder of the production company The Wedding Filmer). Then came Priyanka Chopra-Nick Jonas (who sold their wedding photos to People magazine for $2.5 million), followed by Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh and Sidharth Malhotra-Kiara Advani (who hired the same director, Punjabi, as Sharma and Kohli). Often secretive about their weddings, stars release curated photos and videos for their fans on social media, influencing their choices, such as in decor, make-up, or mehendi.
By spending a huge sum of money, regular individuals can now marry like stars, and they make sure the world knows. Opulence has become meaningful, tied to an identity. This has inflated the cost of an average wedding, making desperation trickle down to the economically marginalised families who rely on loans to keep up. The pressure on Indian brides바카라irrespective of class and due to Instagram바카라is stratospheric. Before social media, we saw ourselves, and others saw us. But now, we see others seeing us, and we see ourselves seeing others. So the wedding becomes a quest for #GramWorthy perfection: the perfect lehenga, the perfect make-up, the perfect (sunset) shot. No one is immune from the last concern, not even Alia Bhatt, who, during her long wedding rituals, worried about losing daylight and, consequently, perfect pictures.
As weddings acquired the tenor of events바카라or performances바카라they moved from familial circles to service providers, exemplifying how the market overshadows the community. Because what once lay within the family바카라the preparation and execution of different functions, via parents, uncles, and aunts바카라has now been outsourced to wedding planners, choreographers, and photographers. With their Excel sheets and tablets and walkie talkies, wedding planners make intimate ceremonies resemble corporate events, and their demand has seen such an upsurge that it바카라s resulted in a critically acclaimed web series, Made in Heaven (2019, 2023).
With Indian weddings becoming larger than themselves바카라signalling financial might, networking power, and social status바카라they바카라ve culminated in what they were destined to be: political statements. Guest lists are no longer restricted to friends and families but hold in them a vast gamut of business and political possibilities. It wasn바카라t always like this. In the mid-1960s, the government ensured that a host couldn바카라t serve more than 25 people at home in a wedding. The various Guest Control Orders in the late 1960s and 70s continued to reflect a country in sync with its wallet and soul. Over the last decade, too, several bills (or proposals) have sought to restrain such excesses, but this India is different. It바카라s a country where money doesn바카라t just buy personality, money is personality.
And the recent Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant바카라s pre-wedding festivities바카라a dizzying confluence of business, cinema, and politics바카라truly finished in life what HAHK had unleashed on screen. It was an expensive celebration, yes (at a reported budget of $120 million), but that alone didn바카라t make it remarkable바카라or that it, once more, reduced Bollywood stars to dancing puppets. It was about what it showed and how바카라and whom it reassured and why. Sure, you expect an avalanche of Hindu iconographies at the wedding of two Hindus. But what explains a Muslim star, Shah Rukh Khan, greeting the guests with 바카라Jai Shri Ram바카라? Or special provisions to make Jamnagar an international airport? Or the incessant fawning coverage, almost stopping short of displaying price tags of media houses? Besides, there was no condemnation of 바카라vulgar display of wealth바카라 this time but endorsement, as in January 2024, PM Narendra Modi encouraged moneyed Indians to 바카라Wed in India바카라.
The Ambani pre-wedding, inviting both Rihanna and Sachin Tendulkar, coincided with a fresh wave of farmers바카라 protests. Three years ago, she had supported them on Twitter, while the cricketer, like many Indian celebrities, posted a tweet reminding 바카라external forces바카라 that, in Indian affairs, they should remain 바카라spectators바카라 not 바카라participants바카라. The 2024 event, though, reversed their identities: Rihanna, performer; Tendulkar, spectator. It also gave a strange fillip to Indian identity, with many on social media pointing at it to proclaim national supremacy. It was a baffling equation바카라a business tycoon바카라s wealth became a poor country바카라s pride. But the most telling moment in the three-day extravaganza came when Merchant had to give a speech standing beside her fiancĂ©. 바카라Your life will not go unnoticed because I바카라ll notice it,바카라 she said at one point. 바카라Your life will not go unwitnessed because I바카라ll witness it.바카라 Sounds familiar? It바카라s almost a word-by-word copy of Susan Sarandon바카라s dialogue from Shall We Dance? (2004). All the money in the world couldn바카라t buy a 바카라heartfelt바카라 speech. It makes sense: After all, there are some things money can바카라t buy, for everything else there are electoral bonds.
(This appeared in the print as 'Band, Baaja, Business')
