A card we must discard

Writing in The Valley of Kashmir, published in 1895, Walter Roper Lawrence described the Kashmiri of his time as one who was 'not extravagant' and who 'happily spends little on marriages and similar occasions.' But Lawrence immediately added a note of apprehension: as prosperity increased, he feared, the Kashmiri might follow the example prevailing elsewhere and increase expenditure on marriages. Advertisment More than 130 years later, his apprehension seems to have been justified beyond imagination. Marriage expenditure in Kashmir today takes innumerable forms, but broadly it may be viewed under three heads: food, particularly the ever-expanding demands surrounding wazwan; decoration and display; and a variety of incidental expenditures which, over time, have acquired the force of social custom. All three deserve examination. But there is one expenditure which particularly disturbs me: the expensive printed wedding invitation card. I do not defend extravagance in food. The quantities of meat and other eatables consumed at our weddings can certainly be questioned. Yet, at the end of the day, food is food. Someone eats it. Someone is fed. Nor can extravagant decoration easily be justified. Enormous sums are sometimes spent on flowers, lighting, stages and entrances which disappear within hours. Yet even these, one may argue, satisfy an aesthetic desire and lend colour to a memorable occasion. But what does an expensive wedding card leave behind? Thousands of rupees are spent on designing and printing cards on expensive paper, placing them in elaborate envelopes or boxes and arranging their delivery. The recipient opens the card, reads the names, notes the date and venue and puts it aside. Advertisment Its purpose is over. Sooner or later, the card has to go. How many wedding cards can a person preserve? For how many years? And for what conceivable purpose? But in our case there is a further, and more sensitive, difficulty. Our wedding cards frequently carry a verse from the Holy Qur'an, a Hadith, a prayer or an invocation. The name of Allah may appear on the card or even on its envelope. These sacred words are presumably printed to invoke divine blessings upon the marriage. But they create an unintended dilemma. A conscientious person naturally hesitates to discard a piece of paper bearing the name of Allah or words from the Holy Qur'an. So the card finds its way into a drawer, cupboard or shelf—not because it is needed any longer, but because one does not know how to dispose of it respectfully. Even where no sacred verse or invocation is printed, there remains another consideration. Every wedding card necessarily bears the names of the bride and the bridegroom—the two persons whose union it was created to celebrate. There is something unseemly about an elegantly printed announcement of their marriage, carrying their names prominently, eventually lying crumpled among household refuse. Thus the difficulty does not disappear merely by leaving sacred words off the card. If they are printed, disposal becomes a matter of reverence; even if they are not, considerations of dignity and sentiment make the dustbin an uncomfortable destination. There is an irony here worth pondering. We spend substantial sums to create something beautiful for a fleeting purpose, knowing that almost from the moment it is delivered, the recipient must confront a simple question: what am I eventually supposed to do with it? Advertisment And all this happens in an age when almost every household has access to a mobile phone. A tasteful digital invitation can convey the names, programme, date, venue, location and contact details instantly, without expenditure on paper and printing. There may, of course, be exceptions. Elderly relatives unfamiliar with digital communication may need a conventional invitation. A family may also wish to preserve a few printed cards as keepsakes. Nothing prevents the printing of a limited number of simple cards where genuinely necessary. But why hundreds? There is sometimes an amusing contradiction hidden inside the elaborate card itself. An invitee opens an impressive, expensively printed invitation containing a list of several marriage functions, only to discover crosses against almost every event and a solitary tick against one. Occasionally, the invitation is restricted even further—to one person alone. There is nothing objectionable in limiting the number of guests. Indeed, that itself may be a welcome exercise in restraint. But it raises an obvious question: if the invitation is ultimately for one person to attend one function, why does it require an elaborate card, expensive paper, ornamental printing and elaborate packaging—only to convey, through a series of crosses and a solitary tick, that the recipient is not expected at several functions and is invited to just one? A simple telephone call or digital invitation could convey the same message more gracefully and conveniently. The contrast is difficult to miss: the invitation grows larger while the invitation itself grows smaller. Perhaps the problem with our attempts at marriage reform has been that we have always tried to reform everything at once. We discuss the number of dishes, the size of gatherings, gold, clothes, gifts and decorations. Eventually, social pressure proves stronger than our resolutions. Perhaps reform should begin with something smaller. Let us, for the moment, leave the wazwan alone. Let us not count the dishes on the trami. Let us not ask how many flowers decorate the entrance or how many lights illuminate the lawn. Advertisment Those debates can continue. Let us begin with the wedding card. This requires no legislation or government order. It does not diminish the happiness of the bride or the groom, deprive a guest of hospitality or interfere with any essential religious or cultural practice. It merely requires society to accept that an invitation need not be an exhibition of one's financial capacity. Let religious scholars, social organisations and, above all, educated families lead by example. Let sending a simple digital invitation become socially respectable. Nobody should have to apologise for not sending an expensive printed card. Every social custom was, at some stage, an innovation. What society has created, society can also change. Sir Walter Lawrence saw the danger more than 130 years ago. We have spent generations proving his apprehension right. Perhaps it is time to prove that we are also capable of reversing the process. We may not be able to reform the Kashmiri marriage overnight. We may not even agree on what constitutes extravagance in every sphere. But surely we can agree on one small beginning. The expensive wedding card feeds no guest, creates no lasting beauty and serves no purpose once its message has been read. And when it carries sacred words, even its disposal becomes a responsibility. If we cannot discard all our extravagances, let us at least discard one. Let us discard the wedding card. Farooq Ahmad Khan is an Advocate practising before High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Srinagar.