Half Celebration During Festivals

Prashant Jadhav, a young PR professional from Mumbai, was looking forward to buy gold for his wedding in December 2020. He had planned to purchase jewellery for his bride. With the pandemic, everything has taken a back seat. Jadhav complains, “The spread of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown derailed my entire plan and gold prices also began to rise sharply. I have to delay my wedding for a few months because of it.” The pandemic has taught us all one big lesson—stay grounded, stay austere and go online. When it’s a choice between life and death, everything can wait, be it festive fanfare or big fat Indian weddings. Come October, the biggest festivals begin and go on till Christmas in December. This also happens to be an auspicious time for weddings. However, with restrictions of social distancing and shoestring budgets, everything is in a very low key. Weddings...