This was the peak wedding season and we were fully booked. Unfortunately, people are either postponing weddings to next year or holding them in an austere manner. We make money only in the wedding season and whenever the situation deteriorates, our business takes a hit. Fayaz Ahmad
In the season of weddings, the row over Article 35A has thrown Valley’s wedding calendar into disarray. While some are going for austere celebrations, others are juggling with dates, so that wedding ceremonies do not coincide with the Hurriyat shutdown call.
Many have altogether called off weddings, leaving ‘wazas’, traditional chefs, in despair. “This was the peak wedding season and we were fully booked. Unfortunately, people are either postponing weddings to next year or holding them in an austere manner. We make money only in the wedding season and whenever the situation deteriorates, our business takes a hit,” said Fayaz Ahmad, a waza.
Local dailies are splashed with notices of cancelled weddings or informing guests not to come for a feast as marriages would be held in an austere manner in view of the situation.
The cancellations have come at a time when lavish weddings were raising eyebrow in the Kashmiri society. A government order issued last year and repeated pleas from clerics to check lavish weddings had gone unheard. While guests were starting to lose the count of non-vegetarian dishes being served, new trends like use of drone cameras, erecting palatial tents, going for shopping outside the state, costly designer dresses/jewellery, special dresses for ‘wazas’, serving dry fruits in designer boxes with cash in ‘baraat’, hiring of expensive make-up artists and pop bands had emerged as some new trends.
Rauf Bhat, whose cousin is going in for a simple wedding, said the intensity of the shutdown was forcing people to organise austere weddings.
“Last time, the shutdown over Article 35A was very intense. Life was completely paralysed. Tonnes of meat is cooked on weddings and if people don’t come, everything will go to waste,” he said.
“Today, a notice in a newspaper said a feast on the ‘hartal’ day of August 30 will be thrown on August 29 instead. A one-day adjustment is possible, but a Kashmir wedding takes a year to plan…. Everything cannot be adjusted. People are forced to hold simple weddings,” he added.
- Wedding season in Kashmir is limited to a few months
- Chefs and tent owners are worried as people are going in for simple weddings
- Marriages are avoided in winters and the fasting month of Ramazan
- Weddings planned on shutdown days over Article 35A are being cancelled
- Local papers are splashed with notices of cancelled parties
