South Indian wedding receptions, as reported in the New York

[harimau]

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/ ... ly-feasts/


Tech Boom Turns Bangalore Weddings Into Worldly Feasts


By SARITHA RAI


Ravi Sinha preparing grilled vegetables to be served with saffron rice and romesco sauce, at a wedding banquet in Bangalore, Karnataka.Courtesy of Ravi Sinha/Lucky Malhotra PhotographyRavi Sinha preparing grilled vegetables to be served with saffron rice and romesco sauce, at a wedding banquet in Bangalore, Karnataka.



Life and Love in the New Bangalore

Tales of ambition and youth from India’s outsourcing hub.
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Ravi Sinha, an entrepreneur in Bangalore, innovates constantly, tracking all the latest trends and occasionally outsourcing to outside specialists. Research and development are critical to his profits, and globalization has helped shape his business.

Mr. Sinha isn’t working at a tech startup, although the wealth from the IT industry has certainly affected his business. He runs a wedding catering company in India’s technology hub, where new money and global travel are changing the way weddings are celebrated by South Indians, who were once known for their traditional restraint.

The Bangalore rich are still hesitant to splurge on chartered jets and destination weddings as their Mumbai and Delhi peers do, but over the past few years, Bangalorean wedding guest lists of 5,000 to 6,000 people became customary, and menus can stretch to 700 individual items.

Guests think nothing of gorging on Mumbai chaat, Mongolian grilled vegetables and Lebanese falafel and then rounding it off with South Indian curd rice, Italian gelato and a Benarasi paan, a mish-mash that could make food purists queasy.

“Everybody wants an international wedding menu these days, whether they are South Indians or North Indians,” said Mr. Sinha, referring to the broadest geographic division – and some say the widest cultural one too — within India.

At a recent wedding, Mr. Sinha’s culinary creativity made for a mouthwatering display. The Mexican counter stood next to a dosa/utthapam stall dishing up the south Indian pancakes with a dozen exotic toppings. The Lebanese and Thai food booths faced the chaat station serving morsels of Mumbai street food. The subtler aromas of basil and oregano from the Italian counter mingled with the heady smells of the masalas at the Amritsari stall beside it.

The dessert buffet featured 40 assorted Indian and international desserts and platters of fresh-cut fruit outsourced from a supplier in Thailand. To round it all off, a famed Benaras paanwala customized the betel leaf chews with saffron.

At another wedding, this one hosted by a marble dealer for his daughter, 28 counters featured a variety of cuisines, including Arabic and teppanyaki, and offered 500 individual dishes. “It was a food mela (fair), not a buffet,” said Mr. Sinha.

Some families are stretching the “global” theme to its elastic limits, bringing in blond Russian hostesses to hand menu cards to guests entering the buffet marquee. One recent nuptial featured Roman arches in its décor and greeters dressed in gladiator costumes who, however, were heard conversing with each other in a rustic version of Kannada, the local tongue.

In the old days, a typical Bangalore wedding feast consisted of holige, a sweetened flatbread, and bisibelebath, or hot lentil rice, recalled M.P. Shyam, who owns a string of car dealerships in the city, including for Mercedes-Benz. These days, the traditional “plantain leaf” fare is seen only at the daytime rituals, if at all, and not at the evening banquet buffet.

“The influx of people from all parts of India and overseas is making Bangalore shed its self-restraint,” said Mr. Shyam. “Wedding guests have to be fed so hearty a meal that they talk about it for months.”

Mahesh Bhandari, a furniture importer who crafts menus for the numerous weddings in his large family, said, “People are traveling the world and know exactly what they want. It is a chance to show how sophisticated they are.”

Even the less-moneyed are taking the worldwide integration of the wedding feast very seriously. “Italian and Mexican has become standard fare, though we Indian-ize them with local spices,” said Guman Singh, another wedding caterer whose factory in south Bangalore is a test lab for dishes incorporating the Indian and international.

Mr. Singh, who has been in business for two decades, started out cooking with only his brother but employs 800 people today. In that period, the per-plate charge for a wedding buffet has shot up from less than a 100 rupees (not even $2) to several thousands of rupees. A lavish banquet could easily set the host back by the equivalent of $500,000, he said.

“It is all a terrible waste of money — who can eat so much?” asked Mr. Shyam, even as he was gearing up for the November wedding festivities of his daughter, currently studying at Stanford University. He declined to say how many dishes were on the menu, adding that his daughter would help with the final preparations.

Though not a wedding banquet norm, the crowning detail in Mr. Sinha’s and Mr. Singh’s offerings is that they are “pure vegetarian,” a phrase that connotes a strict ban on meat and eggs. That raises the bar, said Mr. Sinha, who recently re-created a classic French seven-course menu with vegetarian ingredients for a sit-down wedding dinner.

There is also an element of one-upmanship in these ever-expanding feasts, he said: “Families demand, ‘So-and-so had 400 dishes and 20 counters; mine should be bigger and better.’ ”

Mr. Sinha said research and development are key to his competitiveness. He has taken to fusing the Indian and the Western tastes to great success, describing fusion as the “cutting edge” of wedding cuisine. His inventions include a paneer (cottage cheese) panna cotta and a sitaphal (custard apple) caramel pudding. Another hot trend is counters where curries, salads and desserts are all created to order, said Mr. Sinha, who threw around words like “mise-en-place.”

Amid the trend of ever-expanding menus and extravagant displays of worldly tastes at banquets, Mr. Shyam brought up a relevant question: “People certainly talk about the food and the décor at weddings these days. But where do the bride and the groom figure in all this?”

[vasanthakokilam]

menus can stretch to 700 individual items.

OMG, what is going on?

Guests think nothing of gorging on Mumbai chaat, Mongolian grilled vegetables and Lebanese falafel and then rounding it off with South Indian curd rice, Italian gelato and a Benarasi paan, a mish-mash that could make food purists queasy.

Now I know why Harimau is interested in this. What is for entertainment? It has got to be Fusion, right? Liberal dose of Bollywood, a bit of carnatic and hindusthani with Mongolian throat singers accompanied on a Labanese Buzaq to some tilting Latin beats?

But where do the bride and the groom figure in all this?

Good question. It is like asking in fusion 'where do the sowkyam figure in all this'?

[Ramasubramanian M.K]

RE: OSTENTATION OLIVER GOLDSMITH SAID IT APPROPRIATELY"

"THE NAKEDNESS OF THE INDIGENT WORLD CAN BE CLOTHED FROM THE TRIMMINGS OF THE VAIN"

Such vulgar displays of crass hedonism--unfortunately-are only going to be increasing as the accumulated wealth --far beyond one's basic needs--is only going to spur people to splurge more and more!!

Having said sanctimoniously the above cliched homilies"(a la Marx or Mao-)

The benefit of a liberal education is it helps you to despise the wealth it prevents you from having in the first place!!!

[rshankar]

OMG, what is going on?

If you asked my mother, she'd probably say 'ajIrNam'!

[arasi]

VK,
Music better not keep company with this hedonistic binge.

Ravi,
Your mother perhaps would add--'throwing up'. What else after a binge like this?
Even reading about it can make one sick

What next? The Decline and Fall of the IT community?

[vasanthakokilam]

Yeah, I hope people do not feel the need to sample all the 700 items. Ooch!

In a lighter vein though the issue is quite serious..

In general, people spending their money does not bother me. It is million times better than people hoarding it. Such spending can only help the economy by moving the money around. ( including spending on the doctor bill for the aJirNam.! ). So let us thank the rich people for spending their money . This is not inconsistent with thanking people who give to charity and who help the poor and encouraging such activities. But somehow humanity looks down upon spenders. As long as people do not spend too much beyond their means and be restrained when it comes to some limited natural resources, I say let them spend if they so wish and if they have the means, even if it is to satisfy the various forms of vanity. I know this is against what religions preach but I think those things need to be nuanced properly otherwise if everyone follows those principles the economy will collapse. I think there is some conflation between those two forms of spending going on in such religious and spiritual matters. Though that is not universal since we do have proverbs like 'thirai kaDal ODiyum diraviyam thEDu' ( even go overseas in search of wealth). But they missed out the corresponding advice on spending! But we do glorify royalty and temple institutions when they spend.

So, next time you see someone in expensive silk saree and jewelry at a CM concert, do not let that turn you off, just thank them ( under your breath of course ) that they are indirectly helping you earn your living