A reader has reacted strongly to my last column titled ‘In the times of fall’.
The reader, who introduced himself or herself as ‘Anti-feel, anti-fall soul’, wrote: Ali, your piece on seasons, weather and climate ‘In the times of fall’ was far from reality and expectations. I’m appalled that media houses cannot see the season of change, that is in the air. Change of faces, change of government, change of system, and so on. And how can you forget the season of weddings?
Regards,
Anti-feel, anti-fall soul
Well, thank you, dear reader for reminding me about the political climate of the country, which cannot be ignored, and the season of weddings, that is taking place after a break in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
First, something about the political matters, which are getting worst for the ruling party, especially Prime Minister Imran Khan, day by day.
Someone should tell Mr prime minister that he’s losing public confidence. And he’s already lost the trust of the power that be in the wrangling of the notification.
The government seems to be breathing its last breaths. The faces of the PTI should look back when they took charge in 2018, many people had hopes of a better Pakistan. There were claims of ending corruption in the first 90 days and bringing back all the money stolen by earlier governments. Many promises were made but alas none were fulfilled. Instead, the country is facing all-time high inflation rates; the power and energy sector is increasing its prices constantly and the government is failing to keep itself steady. The TLP debacle has also left the government in a shaky position. They first started out by negotiating with the party then declared it as a terrorist organisation and then again started negotiations. The terrorist status was removed and most of TLP’s demands were accepted recently.
The ailing government has its extremely haughty ministers and policymakers to blame for the inefficiency. Time and again the man-made abrupt decisions always proved to be the worst. It is evident that very little planning goes into the decision-making process of this government. Most decisions are either overturned or never go through properly. With the skyrocketing prices of petrol and other commodities, people have become fed up with false hopes. Those in the government must realise that a common man does not care about aesthetics; they only care about whether they can afford to feed themselves and their family two to three times a day. However, the current circumstances have stolen the ability of people to even have one proper meal.
But this is one side of the picture. The other side is about wedding celebrations ongoing everywhere no matter how much is a litre of petrol or what your last month’s power bill was.
After a hiatus of almost a year and a half, the wedding season has begun with a blast. Coronavirus took away the ability of people to celebrate their big fat desi weddings and the poor souls were restricted to a single event marriage with an audience of only a hundred people or so. Some didn’t have it in them to celebrate with such a small audience so they postponed the whole marriage thing until the virus situation got a little better. Although the virus still exists and is very much active, with most people vaccinated by now, people have become more open to the idea of large gatherings once again.
One must not be surprised when people start sending heaps of cards for one wedding because now they are going all out with the celebrations. At first it used to be three events at the most. When coronavirus happened, many opted for a single event, hassle free wedding but many decided to have a six-event wedding later. So, the wedding season 2021-22 means a bridal shower/bachelor night, several dholkis, a sangeet night, a fun day-event with team bride and team groom playing various games, a mehndi, baraat and walima (or shendi and wedding reception if six events seem too much).
Although, celebrations are great and watching Bollywood style choreographed videos of mehndi dances are fun to watch on Instagram and Snapchat, there are a lot of better things on which money can be spent extravagantly but to each his own. Wedding season does bring about with itself certain complications for introverts who like to stay away from people but are dragged to these horrendous events. On the other hand, it’s a treat for extroverts who happen to befriend everyone at dance practices and the dozens of following events.
All in all, in the wedding scenario people have pretty much learnt nothing from the pandemic or the horrible inflation figures.
That’s how seasons pass by and life goes on.
