so dahej, ummm. before i met gunjan, my wife, i used to think that when my parents find a match, i will request for no dowry. i am a bania by the way. my parents gave up dowry (the usual, saree, suit lengths, jewelery, mithai and so forth though nothing flashy like mobike, car etc.). they were almost sure that they wouldnt take anything in my case. so i met gunjan and we wanted to marry. after all the initial troubles, when my parents agreed, i was surprised to see that somewhere deep down they expected something. which wasnt surprising. see, as an outsider or sitting on the flanks its easy to comment that this has to stop. but i found that this isn’t easy and why inspite of so much discussion and action, its not going away in a jiffy.

you accepted saree when your sisters son got married, you accepted milni when your brothers son got married, you have been invited to weddings with Rs. 500 food budget per person. so fine, i am modern, i dont want cash, car but can i please get a lavish dinner? or can i please get these 21 sarees to throw at my greedy relatives? its so hard to get out of this. i fought for it. convinced my parents that we will stand for it. i had given some gift to all my relatives when i started working so tried to use this as an argument that they have already got their stuff. tried to split the wedding dinner bill with my in-laws. they were furious. that kya hum itna bhi nahi kar sakte? where do you draw a line?

it was such a fight every single day that entire month. convinced my in-laws to do all tikka with just Re 1. refused to accept gifts from gunjan’s mama-chacha-mausi-tau. drama is created. they will walk up to stage or tikka ceremony and say that hum badde hai. please respect us. accept this shagun. so do i accept a titan watch? isnt that dowry. i want their blessings. their trust and backing that in times of need they will be there. thats what indian relatives are really good at. but hazaar hungama.

i think i managed to escape with the least amount of dowry in my immediate circle. wife thinks that this was a sham to look good :) she likes to belittle me and i take this as an opportunity to improve myself.

now, the flip side of story is that i have seen my cousins (two girls) actually feel nice that their parents gave away 10-20 lakhs as net package. can you imagine this? a girl feeling proud of the amount and stuff that she got. thats when i started feeling why this hasn’t died over the years. realistically speaking (the bad cases of extortion aside), both the bride and groom feel happy at getting cool stuff. they havent been earning for long (or nothing at all often) and so havent had Rs. 10000 suits, lenghe, shoes, watches, music system and so forth. so they like it deep down even if they make an outwardly display of dowry-dislike. most girls feel that they dont earn or if they do, this is probably the last chance to get so much consumer stuff. and same goes for the groom too. its hard. for my marriage ceremony i wore shoes that were 2 years old and there were at least 10 friends and relatives who commented. can you imagine this? will a younger cousin witnessing this even dare to not buy new 2000 pair when his time comes? we have been very happy. we moved to bangalore (from delhi) after our marriage with 2 suitcase and 2 cartons of books, cassettes, CDs and some utensils. the fun in sleeping in sleeping bags, buying stuff for the whole house over a 1 year period was just amazing. the fights we had over choices, the searching that we did, we still think about it. and of course sleeping in a bag ;-)

am i making any sense? these are my random thoughts. no gyan being given.

I would have really thought that the dulha’s family would have this chotapan feeling if they were showered with so many gifts.

You made a good point, Manpreet that we have too many people that are willing to accept the gifts — but why is that? Just because you are getting it free? Are you that desperate for it?

Monty, there are people like that do totally refuse gifts, even Neeraj has given me some examples of families he knows. So it happens — but in the minority. Sad really.

Eradicate by education. I think that’s key.

Most people happily accept gifts.. (even if they have not demanded anything).. i have seen this in my own family…

But, I believe, that it’s isnt’t easy to eradicate dowry in india… for the simple reason, that it has become a status symbol type of thing in some areas…

Parents give expensive gifts to their daughters and her in-laws just in order to make a statement that they not less than anybody else.. i have seen this a lot… even if the girl’s in-laws don’t ask for anything, the girl parents do spend large amounts of money…

You make an interesting point about the rural areas — that’s quite true but the more educated even those people become, the lesser this dowry will occur.

So maybe a solution is up the literacy rate, now who is willing to help out in this effort?

A couple of months back, my dad told me about this incident that happened to someone he knew in Punjab. Lets call this guy who is getting married “X”. So X was the only son of his parents and his dad was well known in the city, and actually got offers ke I’ll give you 20lacs cash as dowry if you accept my daughter. Then another one came up with 30lacs, so X’s dad called the earlier guy and told him that someone has offered to give 30lacs, is he still interested, and this went On and “X” has finaly got married and has recd 80 lacs cash as dowry.

True Incident !!!