Half way into an 18 hour wedding event, a minor skirmish broke out between the bride's family and the groom's. The sides avoided using loud voices or bad words, but all the same, it put the bride's family in a spot. And caused some embarassment for the groom's family.
The chain of events that led to it sound ridiculous, but show social insensitivity that could kill when profits, not customer welfare, rule the minds of those in a business.
The problem: An 83 year old matriarch who her family loved dearly, who struggled to make it to her grandson's wedding all the way from Chennai, had to use the toilet, a WC, because of her frail health.
Of the three allotted rooms with attached bathrooms for the groom's family, only one had a WC. As fate would have it, or rather the callousness of the wedding hall management, it went unfit for use on the day of the wedding.
The groom's uncle, who arrived the earliest with his family, noticed it and pushed for immediate repair, before the wedding guests made their entry. The management turned a deaf ear. The bride's relatives were too caught up in other issues in the run up to the event.
It is not as if the groom's family did not inspect the premises earlier.A few days before, the venerable matriarch's son visited the wedding hall, checked the toilets and other logistics. Relieved that she would not have to struggle, the son left. In any case, with the toilet left unusable, all the hard work looked wasted.
The bride's family took it easy too, as everything else was going fine. Meanwhile, intermittent pushing by the groom's uncle for `fixing' of the WC continued even as the guests arrived and the granny too.
A few workers and a plumber arrived after a whole hour of pestering. And realised that the bathroom overhaul was impossible in the next few hours. They vanished feigning false promises of coming back with the equipment in a while.
Winter chill prompted her to want to use the bathroom, two hours into the event. The shy octogenerian tried to hold herself for as long as possible. She did not want to bother her family.
When she mustered courage and decided to ask, all hell broke loose. It suddenly dawned on everyone that another toilet with a WC had to be located. Instantly.
The wedding hall officials were probably around, but who had the patience to `organise' something at the last moment?
The granny's daughter and groom's mother lost her cool . ``Try and understand. She (mother) cannot hold up for long. It's our problem is it not?'' she snapped at the bride's aunt and uncle who were in charge of the event. The groom's uncle who had been after the workers till now, gave them a piece of his mind too.
By now, the grandmother was embarassed, struggling hard to maintain a dignified posture, swallowing her feelings.
Brainwave: The bride's uncle offered to driver her down to his quarters, five minutes away, where some more guests were lodged. After some convincing, the groom's family agreed. Accompanied by her relatives, the matriarch who wanted to hide away in shame by now, walked slowly to the hall's main gate with her stick. Someone else came with the news that she did not have to travel so far after all. They organised the use of a bathroom at the flats opposite the wedding hall.
Putting each step forward carefully over carelessly thrown construction debris that was used to make a pathway near the hall, granny walked through the compound to the apartments block across. The concerned flat was at the rear end of that compound. She walked past strangers in that home, used the toilet and got out as quickly as she could. Once out, she expressed guilt to the bride's relatives to put them through such trouble, only to be hushed by her grandchildren. ``It's not your fault granny,'' they tried to reason.
The bride's aunt apologised about putting her through such trouble too. The matriarch returned to her seat slowly. Time for some lunch. The dining hall was upstairs. Ideally, she would have loved to dine with her family and friends upstairs. The bride's family was wiser by now and organised a few tables and chairs on the ground floor.
If one takes a quick look at this chain of events, it is easy to pass the blame on the people present there. The core issue that went unnoticed was simple: that before an event of this magnitude, the wedding hall management did not bother to set the WC right. Or if it was not possible to set it right in case of some damage just the day before, they did not bother to inform the concerned customers. Any event that sees a gathering of a few hundred people always requires more rest rooms - not taken care of by this hall management.
They probably presumed that like everything else that is compromised during such events, the toilet bit would be swept under the carpet. Wedding halls sure are a profitable business!
More often than not, when such places are designed, the presumption is that any guest who walks in to the hall is able bodied, can put up with shoddy service, climb stairs with ease and still pay up the hefty tens of thousands besides shelling out extra money for related labour charges.
It is true we have wedding halls that are built much better, charge as high as Rs 1 lakh for a day's use as rent, have more guest rooms and look more grand. More bathrooms and clean rooms with storage are a welcome respite. The tragedy: Such halls are less sensitive to the needs of elderly, the wheel-chaired and the sick too. How many such venues for instance, can boast of elevators? Or ramps for easy access from one floor to another?
How many such halls can come any closer to having toilets that suit the needs of the disabled and the elderly? A common grouse among builders who get such halls built is that it is not cost-effective (read profit oriented). Even by their own argument, all it takes is one wedding hall owner to advertise features that are friendly on the elderly and disabled, and it could help kickstart a competition. At this venue too, a ramp would have been ideal for its design.
Moreover, can providing features such as ramps, disabled friendly toilets, and other such help be measured against currency notes that one gets in return?
Most families that organise celebrations on a scale upward of a 100 guests can be assured of at least one or two people for every hundred who need help in climbing, moving about, or even elderly who are forced to stay put in their homes because such venues are less friendly on their needs.
Should we then get stuck up with a convenient mindset that everything comes with a price?
In the Indian tradition, no marriage is complete without the blessings of elders in the family. Would wedding hall owners then want to put a price on the blessings by elderly mothers simply because they became frail rearing their children?
Time to revalue and revamp our wedding venues. After all, for want of a WC, a wedding would have got stalled!
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