The toll booth to wedded bliss

Dec 06, 2011 (The Daily Star – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –
DHAKA (THE DAILY STAR/ANN) — Winter in Bangladesh is the most popular season of the year. The slightly cooler (more bearable) temperatures, the delicious winter veggies, mouth watering pithas, winter holidays for school children, a rare opportunity to show off those lovely Kashmiri shawls and pashminas stuffed at the back of one’s closet and most importantly-weddings, being the main attractions.

Winter weddings are so popular, this special time of the year has been re-christened “the wedding season.” Over the decades however, the weddings themselves have undergone several makeovers. Gone are the days when the ceremonies involved a maximum of fifty to one hundred of one’s closest friends and relatives- an intimate affair that could be arranged in one’s backyard. “My wedding took place in my aunt’s front garden,” says R Hossain in her fifties, who comes from a well to do family, “I wore my mother-in-law’s old wedding sari and one set of gold jewellery and did my hair and make-up on my own. Our cook made dinner for our family and friends, I think we served plain pulao and beef curry. This was back in the seventies.”

Such a wedding is now practically unheard of. As the economy grew, incomes increased and so did people’s social networks. As years went by, the guest lists for each wedding grew longer and longer. “It is now unthinkable to have a wedding without inviting every single acquaintance you have and sometimes even their friends and families!” says Imtiaz Ahmed, who recently went through an elaborate wedding affair.

Along with the size of the guest list, there came changes in many other aspects of these affairs. Increasing exposure to the media introduced new ideas of how weddings are conducted in other parts of the world. Bollywood weddings especially, gave most Bangladeshis a skewed perception of what Indian weddings looked like, and many decided to follow suit. Before we knew it, weddings without large banquet halls, decorated with elaborate floral arrangements and expensive lighting, fine dining, professional entertainment, professional photographers and videographers and at least a week’s worth of celebratory events became unthinkable.

“A wedding isn’t what you think it should be anymore, it is what the society expects it to be,” says Sharmin Jabeen Ahmed, who waited three years to save up for her nuptials before she tied the knot. “My husband and I had to pay for the entire wedding ourselves and let me tell you, it did not come cheap. The engagement alone cost us about three and half lakhs, and this is not including the jewellery set my mother left me which is worth about 3 lakhs.”

Ahmed and her husband spent about 1,000,000 taka (US$13,000) each on the holud and the wedding ceremonies. “We had to pay about 25,000 taka ($324) for the All Community Centre in Gulshan where we had our holud, and 60,000 taka ($779) for Falcon Hall for the wedding, and this is after a discount. We had 350 guests for the holud and about 700 for the wedding and the food was about 500 taka ($6) per person. The photographer charged 20,000 taka ($259) for each event because he was my cousin’s friend, but his usual rate is 40,000 taka ($519). I think the gifts we had to buy for our friends and family cost a large chunk of the total expenditure not to mention the beauty salon costs, which went upto 20,000 taka. I had to buy clothes for many of my family members from both my dad’s and mom’s side and also for my close friends and for some people a simple cotton sari or Panjabi won’t do, they expect better things nowadays.”

Zeba Hasan, who comes from a lower middle class background, has also spent over a lakh on her wedding, which took place last year. “We had the holud in the garage in our apartment complex, and the wedding in a small community centre in old town, which incidentally caught fire on the night of our wedding because of an electrical malfunction. We had about a hundred and fifty guests but the food, gifts and jewellery were quite expensive.”

Another newly wed, and rather disgruntled Shahreen Islam says, “I spent 20,000 taka on dalas (wedding gifts for the bride, groom and family, decorated in elaborate baskets) alone, and I didn’t have more than maybe 6 dalas! And there are too many options for all the things you can buy, starting from satin and tissue covered dalas to plastic covered ones and so many choices for decorations, it boggles the mind. Invitations were also quite expensive.”

A wedding without dalas, no matter what socio economic status you hold, just doesn’t seem complete. Stores selling materials for this purpose alone, now have a booming business. “Winter is the busiest time of the year for me,” says Sayeedul Kader, who has a small shop on elephant road next to a long stretch of what seems to be exclusively dalas and decoration material shops. Kader sits amidst glittering fabric/paper roses and daisies of all colours bunches of gold and silver leaves and berries, colourful balls made of cane , beads, pearls and sequins, spray paint and poster colours, ribbons and kathan borders bearing a myriad of designs and patterns, wooden blocks carved with various designs made for block printing, colourful paper and of course dalas of all shapes and sizes and price ranges. “Nowadays this is one of the most profitable businesses,” says Kader, “Dala making has become a fun activity for family and friends and they make an event out of it, there is no way I can make a loss.”

According to Esha Noor, who is a seasoned wedding shopper having helped out with most of her friends’ weddings, the best places to purchase dalas and decoration materials are Elephan Road, New Market, Chadni Chawk and Gawsia Market. “These places have the widest variety of things at bargain prices,” says Noor, “There are high end places like D?cor in Gulshan, Ferns and Petals and Ikebana, Gulshan Market and Aarong, but their prices are much higher. In my opinion, if you are buying these things for one-time use only, why not buy affordable things that look nice as long as they last?”

Sari shops also run a profitable business during the wedding season. “Our sales go up during Eid and winter,” says Al Amin, a store manager at a well-known sari shop on Bailey Road. “People buy saris in bulk for each wedding, starting from expensive ones for the murubbis (elderly members of the family, usually mothers, grandmothers, aunts etc) which range from 10,000 taka ($129) to 15,000 ($194) each, to cheap cotton ones for the help which cost 400 taka ($5) to 500 taka ($6) each. Many order identical saris for the friends and relatives who will be dancing at the holuds and that costs extra.”

Apart from emptying one’s bank account, weddings also come with innumerable stresses and obstacles, which need to be overcome, and this requires patience and resourcefulness. “The main problem we faced when we decided to get married was that there were no venues available on the dates we chose,” says Nusha Khan (not her real name), “We had to wait a few extra months to get married. On top of that, some venues offer a catering service, and if you bring an outside caterer, they charge an extra amount, mostly around 15,000 taka. Another big problem was that all the stores close at 8pm and my office hours end at 7:30 pm, as does most of my family’s. I always had to rush to the stores and grab what I could, often buying more expensive things because I had to shop at places close to work which is in Gulshan!”

As wedding productions get more extravagant, some people have turned these events into a full time profession. “In Bangladesh, weddings in themselves have become an industry,” says Prito Reza, a wedding planner who runs a company called Wedding Diary, “My team undertakes everything that needs to be done for a wedding, apart from matchmaking. We do the decorations, lighting, sound, entertainment such as bands or dancers etc, catering, print the cards, decorate the dalas, help book the venues, in fact, we even make appointments for the bride at the beauty salon for her make-up for the big day (at a discount) and decorate the fish sent to the bride’s on the morning of the holud.”

Many folks are happy to hand over the many tiresome responsibilities over to experienced, capable hands. “I meet with my clients before every wedding to get an idea of what they want,” says Reza, “I come from a middle class background so I know the financial limitations of such families and can work with them to arrange something that is affordable. For example, for videography, we have a range of prices starting from 3,000 taka ($38) and goes up to about one lakh, depending on what the client can afford. For photography, we start at 8,000 taka ($103) and it can go up to 10,000 taka or more. For decorating, we start at 15,000 taka per event, which I think is quite reasonable considering the price of things these days. Some decorations can cost up to one lakh.”

Prito noticed that people like to spend more on entertainment these days, like hiring a live band, dancers, etc. Those who can afford it prefer imported flowers for decorations to those available here. “Some folks now want a thematic wedding,” says Prito “We are currently working on a wedding where the theme will be ‘Under the Sea,’ which will be held at the Lakeshore Hotel. We plan to have an underwater feel to the entire hall with bluish lighting and a shell where the couple will sit,” he describes, “We also plan to make the floor resemble a sea bed, add water fountains, have digital posters etc. The budget for this wedding event is 10 lakhs but it might go over that.”

For an upper class wedding, the total expenditure can go up to one crore takas, according to Reza. A stage alone can cost one lakh if one wants it to be that lavish. If you want to import flowers, you can easily spend up to 10 lakhs on that alone.

The price of catering is also quite high in our country. Food is the most important part of a Bangladeshi wedding, it can make or break an event, says Reza.

For entertainment, the standard charge ranges from 10,000-15,000 taka for a DJ or a live band. “We get clients from the middle and upper class mostly, and when we do get lower middleclass clients, they usually just want to get the photography or video done by us. They usually book small community centres that have their standard d?cor and lighting.”

What is interesting is that these places charge rent for the tables and chairs separately, usually about 40 taka ($.05) per chair. They are also making it mandatory for people to hire their in house decorators when they rent the halls for which they charge double of what an independent decorator would. The cheapest halls are the government owned community centres that charge about 20,000 to 25,000 taka ($259 to $324).”

“If I had an option, I would spend all that money on buying my wife a nice ring or taking her on a lavish honeymoon,” says Sarwar Khan, “but you do what you have to I guess.”

Aside from the near-bankruptcy and the near-nervous breakdowns, weddings do contribute largely to our economy. The flower business, handicrafts, the community centres, the boutiques, caterers, decorators, photo/videographers, musicians, beauty salons, transport business and even the airlines that fly guests to the city/country make good money from these events. On an individual level, people hired to run errands, serve and clean up, also make a good amount every year.

Of course, at the end of the day, the joy it brings to see beautiful arrangements and happy faces all around makes it all worth all the trouble. So enjoy this year’s wedding season, which has begun with a promise of new and exciting things to come.

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Copyright (C) 2011, The Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh

If you are confronted with the recurring problem of giving a Christmas present to you expat friends, don’t commit the terrible mistake of giving him/her bottles of Unicum or Tokaj wine, or extra hot red paprika in a cloth bag. Everyone else will do that. The following ideas will put you ahead of the pack:

The White King, a phenomenal novel by the young Hungarian writer Gyorgy Dragoman
This novel is a dark and funny tour de force from a child’s perspective, set in the Hungarian community of the Transylvania of the Ceausescu regime. Every chapter could be a short story in itself, with the fun, unpredictability and originality of Huckleberry Finn (no kidding). As it was translated into about 30 languages, it is likely that you can buy it in the native language of your expat friend, other than English, if needed. – (Bestsellers, V. Október 6. utca 11.,)

Modern print of a 1930’s photograph
Several of the world’s most renowned photographers came from Hungary. Kertesz, Brassai, Munkacsi, Capa, and others. But whilst they were making their names abroad, their lesser known contemporaries stayed behind. Now, beautiful modern prints of some of their photographs are available at very reasonable prices from the Mai Mano Haz bookshop, and are great for home decoration. (VI. Nagymező utca 20.,).

If your friend is a collector of art, and you are willing to spend some hundred euros, you can find great vintage copies in Vintage Gallery (V. Magyar utca 26.,)

A Subscription for the Hungarian Quarterly
This is a serious title edited in Budapest, with a lot of fun reading – from poems and short stories to reviews of the cultural scene and essays on history and the contemporary social scene. It is well-designed and a great feeling comes from leafing through it, even if one doesn’t read it from cover to cover. This is an English language entrance to a “culturally over-developed country”. Don’t deterred by the fact that the paper can now be accessed through the Internet. It is not the real thing –in this case. (www.hungarianquarterly.com)

Three Hungarian Films, Your Personal Selection
Young (or early-career) Hungarian filmmakers have produced some great movies in the last ten years. To buy three of them on DVD with English subtitles (and to put them in a fancy box with a tailormade cover) is fun. If I were you, I would certainly include “Kontroll” (a hilarious and original comedy on the daily life of metro controllers, shot entirely underground), “White Palms” (the Bildungsroman of a talented gymnast in the late totalitarian Hungary) and Taxidermia (a complex, poetic and funny history of three generations in Hungary, loosely connected, a very memorable film indeed.) Odeon art video rental will most probably have them, if not, they will order them for you, or will give you even better ideas. (XIII. Hollán Ernő utca 7.,)

Any CD from the Bartok New Series
Probably the greatest artistic effort in this part of the hemisphere, this is a fresh and new series of recordings of Bela Bartok (1881 – 1945) based on the genius of Zoltan Kocsis (pianist and conductor, music director of the National Philharmonic). It was initiated by a private donor, financed by the National Cultural Fund, and overseen by a group of experts (who also constitute the Board of a foundation created for the project). So far 15 CDs have been released, many of them winning prestigious awards. The series is half completed now.

A Gift Card to Europe’s Smallest Cinema
The Cirko-Gejzir cinema is a 15 year old, two-hall, highly original place. It is an importer of some of the most original European movies including Danish pieces like After the Wedding or Adam’s Apple). It is situated on the Pest riverfront, between Parliament and White House. The gift card costs some 70 euros, and you can visit the cinema any number of times. You can even get a tax receipt, since formally it is a donation for the foundation. (V. Balassi Bálint u. 15 – 17.,).

And Best of All: A Personal Tour of Budapest

Expats are probably well-aware of the usual sights, which they have probably shown around to their own visiting friends.
They are likely to know the “hidden treasures”, like “The Small Museum Tour”, and the like. Instead, give them a choice of itineraries based on your personal life:
–neighbourhoods I have lived in,
–neighbourhoods I dreamed to live in,
–neighbourhoods where girls/women who I dated lived,

With a little planning you can put together a great tour, with some insight into your personal life.

If you liked the excerpt from the “expat bible”, and want to to buy a copy of the new edition with 20% discount (only for XpatLoop.com members), call +36 1 318 3938 in office hours.

06.12.2011

Social media users can tag, like, tweet, post and tumble. And now, with the newest social photo-sharing site, Pinterest, users can “pin” their interests and organize them into categories.

Pinterest creators Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp and Ben Silbermann launched the site in March 2010. Only a year later, Pinterest made TIME Magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2011” column.

According to the site’s mission statement, “(Pinterest’s) goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people.”

Pinterest users can browse other people’s billboards and re-pin their photos. Contrary to other social networking services, Pinterest requires an invitation to get started. Though the site may seem overwhelming at first, most users can agree that Pinterest can quickly become addicting and enjoyable.

“I’ve always liked scrapbooking a lot, but it does get costly and takes a lot of time,” said Lauren Polke, senior in Business. “Pinterest is sort of like an online scrapbook of my favorite things. I also like it because it gives me new fashion ideas.”

To organize pictures, Pinterest users can sort their pins onto boards, and there is also no limit on pins per board.

“I have a bunch of girly categories,” said Rachel Whiteside, sophomore in Elementary Education. “My future wedding, cute babies, cute animals, crafts to try, funny things. I’m kind of a nerd.”
Though males are encouraged to use the site, it seems to have more female users.

“I think it attracts more girls than guys because of the material on there,” said Catherine Kelly, freshman in LAS. “The most common categories are about food recipes, crafts, fashion, wedding ideas, and things of that nature. Typically those categories do not interest guys.”

With such a broad range of categories, Pinterst users are sure to spend hours a week on the site. There is even a Pinterest app for the iPhone, which makes it easy for fans to re-pin at least once a day.

“It’s so addicting because every picture or video you click on is a portal to another, and everything on there is funny, or fascinating, or clever, so it’s so easy to keep finding things that you enjoy,” Kelly said.

Like Tumblr and other blog sites, users can follow and re-pin fellow Pinterest-ers. Pinterest connects with Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail, making it easy to find followers and connect with other people.

If you’re looking for a fun, new way to get your creative juices flowing or kill time, Pinterest is the way to do it — but beware — because once you start, you can’t stop. Request an invite soon and this mindless entertainment will keep you pinning for hours.