recap....5

time for recap    and probably nothing else    a 7 yr old piece

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courting debt and wedding death

it happens every time and  i  saw it again last month.
it was for the marriage of  my  unlce's daughter.  food was arranged for about 1000 people. the bill ? not  less than a lakh of rupees.
and the ornaments weighed about a kilogram  and she visited the jewellers a dozen times to select the items and to change each of them at least twice. and the sarees should  have costed nothing less than two lakhs.
we  sat down to finalise the accounts the next day.  my uncle  who is a retired school teacher did the sums and said if he could raise 5 lakhs somehow all his debts could be paid of.  can he sell off some property ? no. for the marriage of  the elder one what ever land he had had been disposed of.  can he commute the  pension ? no. it has already been done to make the girl a doctor .   

now  what to do ? no one knows . not in the least my uncle . he is however relieved that everyone agreed that the function was grant.  he told me that  prestige should be protected at any cost ,  money or no money. 
1.  is it time for a crusade to bring us keralites out of the false prestige  we live with ?
       2.  will a new law limiting expenditure on marriages help ?
3. can we try social boycott of extravagant marriages?
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 i do not have an answer to his debt problems. i only hope that he does not scribble solutions in a suicide note. very many suicide notes in malayalam say unable to pay off debts and  hence not interested in living.