JUST as shadi season rolls around every year, so too must a column giving voice to all the silent suffering of people who have to attend the grotesquely lavish and unashamedly gaudy events that have come to pass as wedding celebrations in this country. While it is the very rich that are holding the most lavish celebrations, it should come as no surprise to anyone that, at every class level, Pakistanis are overspending, overdoing, over-competing, and over-choreographing what used to be celebrations of two people being joined in matrimony. Evidence of this is in the numbers — Pakistanis reportedly spend Rs200 billion annually on weddings.

At the centre of this is what should be called the ‘mega-shadi’ — five or six insanely lavish events held to celebrate the nuptials of someone who usually is either in politics, or has feudal or industrialist connections. Often, they are also people whose actual sources of income remain anathema to common arithmetic. People don’t get wealthy enough to hold mega-shadis by hard work and ambition alone, at least not in Pakistan.

The model for the mega-shadi is the Ambani wedding, the most ‘mega’ of mega-shadis in recent memory. Since that event was held,........

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