Manyavar is a brand known for its stunning wedding outfits. I disagree with the general idea of massive amounts being spent on weddings in general and wedding outfits in particular, which aren't really practical to wear ever again. However, I do appreciate the sort of progressive advertising that the brand comes up with from time to time. The Manyavar ad featuring Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli gave us relationship goals for instance. Now a new ad featuring Alia Bhatt takes a look at some sweet but perhaps outdated wedding traditions.
The ad features a beautiful wedding venue and, of course, stunning outfits. It works well as an ad and also has a message. The young bride played by Alia Bhatt speaks fondly of her adoring family members. She questions the assumption that there is some sort of finality about her marriage. She questions the notion that she somehow is going to her ‘real’ home, her ‘real’ family, which is not the one she was born into. In a lovely gesture, her would-be mother-in-law echoes the act of Kanyadaan by holding out her hands along with the groom and father in law. Kanyamaan (respect) rather than Kanyadaan (donation) they suggest.
The ad questions the fact that the daughter is thought of as ‘paraya dhan’, someone who will fly away one day to her ‘own home’. So many wedding traditions have this concept of the bride being somehow passed on to her married family as though she was property. There is the concept of ‘giving the bride away’ or ‘Kanyadaan’ – all rituals that have been followed for ages now.
These are sweet and touching rituals. A precious part of the family is now part of another family as well. But why is there that sense of ‘giving way’ or ‘daan’ here? A woman doesn’t stop being a part of her own family just because she marries. Also, she is a person, not something to be given or donated. So while it makes a woman feel cherished and loved that her family is sad at parting from her, we have to examine why a woman must stop being a part of her own family to be a part of another. Surely she can be as much a part of the family she is born into as the family she marries into?
The ad has triggered a backlash from people who claim that the ad has targeted Hindu rituals. I would argue that it targets all such rituals that view women as property; something to be ‘given’ and ‘received’. This whole ‘paraya dhan’ concept that Bollywood has rammed down our throats for so long, needs to be gone with the wind – of change.
I think the ad is progressive and gently suggests the reexamination of rituals that may have been appropriate in the past but have lost their relevance in the modern context. I also hope that the social media baying for blood will not result in the ad being pulled as ads have in the past.
We have turned into Offendedistan in recent times. It seems there are people looking to find things to take offence at – as in the case of the Myntra issue recently. It seems that anyone can find reasons to become offended by anything. The Manyavar ad merely suggests that we reexamine marriage rituals that treat men and women differently – how is that a bad thing?
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