“BABU - ek roti ka sawal hay ... Allah tujhey salamat rakhey ...” I was distracted by this sound which came from a dark corner of the road. Undecided, I stopped in front of the entrance gate as I was to enter a mega wedding celebration. However, my subconscious led me towards the corner from where the sound came. Noticing that someone was approaching her, the woman who uttered these lines, started repeating them loudly — perhaps with the hope that she would get a few coins. When I reached her, anticipating a casual cold-shouldered response, in a desperate move, she turned her gaze towards left and cried: “Babu, bachi ko khana diladay ...”
Even though I was wearing a blazer over a synthetic t-shirt, my fingers were stiff because of the cold weather. It was a bitter cold night. I moved further closer to have a look at the little girl. She was about eight years old, sleeping on the cold floor, wearing only a worn-out thin cotton shalwar kameez. Her mother, in sheer desperation, had blanketed her with a torn sack. The length of the sack was not enough to cover her from head to toe. So, while asleep, no matter how hard she tried to squeeze herself into it, her head or feet or hand would slide out and get exposed to the chilly weather. She had to change her sleeping posture frequently to fight the chill. However, after a few minutes when the weather became unbearable, in an attempt to gain body temperature, she changed her posture to cover her exposed body parts with the sack.
Just across the road, in a huge car parking, guests were parking their cars. And all cars must have plied the road in whose corner this girl was sleeping. Here, the difference between excessive wealth and poverty became clear — a common feature of our society. But the mother of the girl seemed hopeful that she would get some leftover food once the feast was over.
Despite the fact that a lot has been written on the virtues of the ban on expensive wedding meals, the havoc that this ban would wreak on the lives of the poor has received scant attention. The issue of extravagant and luxurious wedding meals and the social, moral and cultural problems they create has been judged entirely through a different point of view, that is, not giving due attention to the fact that what would happen to those whose survival is dependent on such events. The ban is shocking. Sadly, this would act like self-imposed tsunami waves.
The shock waves produced due to this ban, in due course, would create a tsunami of reasonable proportion and, as it happen with the tsunamis, the worst affected would be naturally those who are fighting a daily battle against poverty. In plain words, this kind of tsunami will hit the poor severely.
It will chiefly affect two categories of the poor. Firstly, those whose livelihood or income is dependent on wedding meals. Secondly, there are thousands who depend on the leftover food which is often a result of big ceremonies.
The leftover food from wedding parties reaches the poor as charity or it is sold to the most deprived in the form of Irani pulao.
The extra food from parties often eventually ends up in dust bins. It is a blessing for the poor that we waste a lot of food. These bins are a source of getting food for many children. They would now be forced to make an extra effort to do something about the issue.
In these circumstances, the rich would naturally maintain their living standard.
A few weeks ago, we read a news item about a mother who killed her three children before committing suicide. Why did she do that? Because she was unable to feed them. Such horrific news items are not uncommon.
But the rich are largely anaesthetized by the pleasure of excessive materialistic pursuit. They have permanently sent the poor to oblivion. It does not concern us as to how the poor would be making their ends meet in the days ahead. For us, these people, who would lose their livelihood simply don’t exist. The decline in adhering to social and moral norms and the rise of uncontrolled materialism have desensitized us as human beings.
Extravagant meals given during marriage ceremonies are a blessing for many people. Without this system, the most vulnerable ones, whose lives are fraught with enormous difficulties, would gradually perish.
