Dum Laga Ke Haisha introduces the culture of mass marriages carried out in India.
Indian marriages are considered big, grand and colorful, almost like a festive celebration.
Well sometimes the brides-to-be aren’t from well off families to mark a grand celebration of the most important occasion of their lives. The government and some organizations come to their rescue. They arrange mass weddings wherein many people participate and get hitched in one ‘mandap’ (venue).
This way the cost is shared amongst the families and the grandeur of the occasion is also not compromised.
In this movie, Ayshmann Khurrana gets into such a marriage and is hitched to Bhumi Padnekar.
It is evident that he clearly didn’t expect the pairing to happen this way.
Looks as if the number 18 is forced on him.
Are these numbers decided beforehand by the families or are they just randomly numbered and the people sporting the same numbers are coupled?
Really if the numbering is random then I don’t even want to imagine the plight of the person who isn’t satisfied. A blind date gone wrong is still fine but to get committed for the rest of your life is a different ballgame altogether.
Well such traditions do happen in India and it isn’t restricted to any religion.
In 2011 3,600 couples were reported to be married in such a grand ceremony. They belonged to various religions and sects – Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Adivasis, etc.
Sometimes it is the organisations and at times it might be a rich tycoon donning the duties of a father figure to several unfortunate girls.
The end of 2014 witnessed a gesture of goodwill by an Indian diamond trader who arranged a mass wedding for 111 fatherless women. He decided to be the father of all these women and gift each bride gold and gifts worth almost $7250.
In the above case it was a gesture of goodwill but in some cases it gets ugly.
The Madhya Pradesh Govt. was in the news for conducting a virginity and pregnancy test on the women participating in the mass marriage they organized. 450 women were reported to undergo this testing and 9 women, as per reports, were banned from participating as they were found pregnant.
