India is undoubtedly shining or should I say sparkling, albeit for a handful. A news item aired yesterday confirmed just that. A leading florist chain has tied up with an international floral couturier (did not know that they existed) and will bring to the ever richer and never sated Indian customer a new extravaganza: flowers decors designed by the master himself at a whopping 2 to 4 crores!
I must confess it took me some time to digest this. I must admit that I am one of those who find even the present weddings too ostentatious and even immoderate. I have for quite some time now stopped attending them as I find them disturbing and wasteful and devoid of any sanctity. For my own child’s wedding I decided to walk the talk though I must confess it did not go down well in a city where big is beautiful.
2 to 4 crores or 20 to 40 million rupees spent on floral decor is something I cannot begin to understand. The next day the flowers are wilted and simply swept away. Bye bye crores and the millions. Is it a way of showing who you are or simply a game of who spends more or comes up wilder ways of spending money? I do not know. Does it reflect a sense of insecurity that can never be revealed? I again do not know. And where it will end? It is any one’s guess.
Till a few months a core was way out of my league. I was imply battling trying to garber the few laks (1/10 of a million) needed to run pwhy. I only became aware of the value of a crore when we set up on the planet why journey. And even more recently the word crore has cropped up often as we debate the costs of construction of planet why. Yes planet why which will have: a guest house with 10 rooms, space for over 50 deprived children, special children and women to live with dignity, space for hundred to come and learn and pwhy to survive and will also be a zero carbon building does not come up to the price of one such wedding. It simply needs 1.8 crores.
Yet for us this figure is so daunting and immoderate that we wonder where it will come from. Just the price of a designer wedding, actually not even that as the 2 to 4 crores are only the cost of the decor!
I must again confess I am still trying to come to terms with this.
PS: the picture of this priceless flower was taken by our hotshot lensman Utpal!
