Live and let live, has been the policy we learned from our parents, who never bothered what anyone else was up to. This most certainly applied to the spending habits of society as well, and we still maintain the same principles. What people do with their own money is between them and their own bank account and am a firm believer in ‘minding one’s business’ and not getting involved in anyone’s anything that honestly does not involve me, or my immediate Family. This can however become a little difficult, unless one is living with no social media and access to mainstream media as well.
1.Now when one is bombarded with the most overt, or at the other end of the spectrum, the most mundane of spending habits, this aggravating spectacle becomes unavoidable to most beings, unless they are like me, someone who is thrilled to live a monastic existence. Even though, with great luck and fortitude I do not see, and do not participate in social spectacles, if I happen to be scrolling through the media feeds, I can be shocked into witnessing some horrors on full display. Let me elaborate on this, sometimes embarrassing, ongoing saga. For the moment leaving aside the predictable wedding fiascos, and bombastic birthday celebrations, now even the most (usually) mundane moments have to be celebrated in grandiose garish fright-fests.
2.Take the bridal showers, which is a tragic import from the west that locally the tackiest of the tacky have brought to new lows. Brides to be who back in the day were busy with their own planning (this is before ‘wedding planners’ were on the scene!) now these young, and not so young women are bored to tears, and busy concocting ways and means to have the most outlandish of events. We see bridal showers where the bride is ‘nearly naked’ giving everyone a view that perhaps her husband, and personal doctor alone should behold, along with ‘bridesmaids’ determined to sink to new lows in the realm of crass and cheap. Clothing seems ‘optional’ and morals even more of an ‘option’, as these women strut their stuff in a sad cry for attention, and honestly psychiatric help. The food is beyond extra, with buckets of foie-gras, and barrels of Veuve Clicquot brashly thrown about as a social signifier, regardless of if the blushing bride (who is blushing with too much alcohol ingestion), and her equally inebriated retinue, enjoys the said items. Usually these ‘showering shattered souls’ are from backgrounds that indulged in toddy, and manioc, but suddenly through (ill) gotten gains, have ‘self-elevated’ and in the process seemingly sunk lower than ever! It usually is the ‘new-found’ money, that has to make a scene, as these brides, their retinue, and most importantly their clueless but equally tacky parents, who believe that these theatrics give them social elevation. When parents think that their daughter and her cohort stumbling aroun
3.like sailors on deck battling the high seas of the South Atlantic, barely keeping down their stomach contents, and even more barely keeping their few bits of clothing on, are a sign of ‘modernity’ and social success, they are sorely mistaken. This is simply a sign of social derailment, and not elevation of any sort (apart from blood alcohol levels).
I recall when ‘sweet sixteen’ parties were wonderfully fun, heart-warming events that marked a special place in a teenager’s life and was quite wholesome as well. Now it is not only sweet sixteen, but bitter-sweet seventeen, fourteen, twelve etc. that is made into a parade of hormonally driven angst and am not talking about the teenagers! The Parents, aunts and uncles, along with the friends of the same genre, decide this is their chance to re-live their long, long, long, long lost youth, by “dipping the lowest” (with their necklines, and on the dance floor) and jumping the highest (on tables and on the scales of cringe) makes them the hottest, and the coolest! Oh, how sadly mistaken they are.
As we quickly shut the phones, and avert our eyes from these frightening visuals, these lost parents (who still imagine they are lads and lasses!) continue embarrassing themselves and their entire generation (not to mention their ancestors) as well!
4.Baby showers, and gender reveal parties are another monstrosity, that should be in honesty, marking a very private moment in a parent-to-be’s life. Again, the event disorganizers go into overdrive. Leaving aside the balloon arches attempting to outdo the arc-de-triomphe in Paris, and the painful placid pastel décor, there always seems to be a contest, like the scene from snow white where the queen looks in the magic mirror, but in this case asks, “who is the tackiest of them all”! Every flower that can be plucked and pruned ends up in a towering target for bees, and people walk around the event as if they are beholding an event, where having a baby requires a ‘Nobel prize” for a special achievement. Food and beverages are mediocre but in vast wasteful quantities, because let us not forget in these events, less is less.
Next, we move on to the dreaded photoshoots. This is where every detail of the utmost triviality needs to be documented for posterity. From the minute the “star of the (horror) show” awakens, to brushing of teeth, to buckling of shoes, to every horrible step of getting rigged up in some dastardly dreadful designer delusion, an entire team of photographers must chase around every member of the family. From the ‘duo’ gazing soulfully into each other’s soulless eyes, to looking at everything with an expression of either bashfulness or awe, these are the basic requirements for these event photographers. Long gone are the days of anyone looking naturally happy, or like they are genuinely having a good time.
Like I said in the beginning, it’s their money, and it is their event, so make it a crap-fest worthy of the tabloids, if that is what pleases you. Do stop imagining though that one has “made a mark” in the style and good hospitality quotient, because the only mark usually achieved by these events, is a black mark against refinement and simple good taste. So, do continue entertaining and scaring us at the same time, because after all “laughter is the best medicine”.
