Grand wedding or happy marriage?
We have all witnessed that the event of marriage is the most celebrated and show-casted event in one’s life. I have strongly felt that as a member of an educated community, we must show a sense of responsibility and bring about a change to dismantle some of the weird and complicated constructed norms that bring about no good, but instead intensifying wrong trends in our society.
One such trend is weddings becoming a status symbol. Weddings in Pakistan are a waste of money and resources. Pakistani weddings have a host of unnecessary and wasteful traditions attach to them. I feel shameful when it comes to our wedding institution and tradition related to it. These wedding practices have stripped away the real essence of marriage.
A Pakistani wedding is a multiday event that includes, decorations, performances, gatherings, food, traditional ceremonies and a lot of festivities and a lavish function of ‘Barat’ and ‘Valima’. Hours of work and huge amounts of two individuals who are now stepping into a partnership of a lifetime.
But unfortunately, a wedding a day or a number of days of celebrations which ideally should involve your loved ones, aimed at making beautiful memories, people having fun and carrying out respective marriage rituals, has now become a status symbol. Now it is about the lavishness of the wedding, the diversified food cuisines, the fancy designer clothing, the long guest’s lists, and the endless expenses. We have forgotten that money can’t buy happiness. It all started with the Jora (The dress).
Our weddings are constructed around dresses, especially ‘Shaadi Ka Jora’ (The wedding dress). The whole event turns out to be revolving around the jora, not Jori (The couple). Instead of helping to create a steady foundation of a happy relationship throughout our marriage, we focus our energies on the weak standard of wedding.
My point is to make weddings relatively simple, decent and happy. Do not make it a burden. Instead of investing in dresses, customs, and luxuries, why not invest in relationships?
Let’s not forget that the couple needs to build an entire life together.
JAVERIYA KHAN,
Karachi.
No vaccine
This virus the COVID 19 (coronavirus) has infected over 114,000 people, killing over 4,000 in 115 countries. Furthermore, coronavirus is bad, no doubt. It is killing people, destroys economies and is disrupting our normal way of living. But at least it can stop with a vaccine.
This is the third major outbreak of a coronavirus that we have had in the past decades and also given the severity of disease caused by these viruses, we should consider investing in the development of a vaccine that would be broadly protective against these viruses. We believe that global action is needed to invest in vaccine approaches that can be employed quickly whenever the coronavirus. We need a more proactive approach supported by continuous funding. Now more than ever we need to protect our most vulnerable population.
But the bad news is there is no vaccine to prevent humans from contracting it. Prayer are needed. So I hope the government can look into this matter seriously and as soon as possible vaccines should be invented.
IBAAD HASSAN,
Karachi.
No handshake
A few days ago, we were encouraging our children to shake hands while greeting and now we teach them to avoid “handshake”, even prefer not to meet anyone. It is not a fiction movie that we are going through; the horror is real. The pandemic is actually in our lives affecting every aspect of it. The outbreak of COVID-19 is out of control and it spread fiercely in more than 190 countries and Pakistan is one of them. It is as deadly and contagious as it sounds, all you have to do is the following things to save yourselves from it:
1. Do not touch your face.
2. Wash your hands regularly.
3. Social distancing.
But the most essential thing is to “stay home”. Keep calm but take the damn things seriously.
ANDLEEB BASHARAT ABBASI,
Rawalpindi.