Tanay Sukumar, April 30, 2011

An Indian bridegroom, who got married the night after he watched the British royal wedding live on television, complained of “boring” and “tiresome” customs, and kept asking the pandit to “hurry up”. The groom threatened to leave the mandap if the pandit didn’t finish the procedures quickly.

The groom told the pandit it was late in the night, and that he was feeling sleepy and tired. “What all are you making me repeat? I don’t understand Sanskrit,” 26-year-old Rajat Kapadia from Lucknow asked the pandit, before requesting him to chant shlokas in English or Hindi. But the pandit said he had forgotten the actual meanings over time, and refused to do so.

The groom then had to stay at the mandap for three more hours, before finally ending up with all customs and traditions. He asked the family elders a number of times to go and watch the wedding of British Prince William that had taken place the previous evening, where the main events of the marriage lasted not more than half an hour.

“It was damn boring, I yawned so many times, and a couple of times I wanted to yawn directly at the pandit’s face,” Kapadia told NTMN later. “I was hungry also, and no one even offered me food, even as they all acted as if I was the most important person on earth. The pandit made me repeat stuff I didn’t even understand. Then there was this walking around with my bride seven times! I mean, what purpose does it serve?”

Despite Kapadia’s protest, the pandit continued the procedure even after the muhurt timings had passed by. The wedding customs had moved on to April 30 instead of April 29.