In the awakened person there is NO FEAR - Hinduism or economic necessity - The Asian wedding industry - whatever it is, it isn't great.
Of late I received the same question from prospective invitees, ”Do you provide wedding music?” As soon as I said, “no as I don’t have any family member that does this for me,” the enquiry went dead.
Even though I offered choices and options I was blanked. And this is despite the fact that as a preacher I have successfully conducted numerous wedding ceremonies alongside live singers. live instrumentalists and some professional wedding DJ’s.
If I were to judge these enquiries then; one enquiry appeared to come from a middle class mother and the other from a young bride. Neither really knew what they were talking about but had massive expectations.
We as people show no faith in some preachers, unless we have selected them and they fit a Bollywood profile. We have turned religion and prayer upside down and manipulated it to suit our concept of a theatre. Both enquiries rather assumed I was somehow not good enough. But were these the type of people I wanted to conduct prayers with. The real question was, neither enquiry was in my value base.
Music and music suppliers have begun to control whether a preacher is or is not invited; some of whom clearly dictate who they will and will not conduct alongside. Often standing upto their malicious behaviours results in closed doors.
With the giving of power arises an arrogance and further assumptions that older preachers do not deliver. How ageist, really is this. And anyone that takes part is rather discriminating.
On the flip side, mark my words, some of the preachers operating in these cliques will not, surprisingly, be available for engagements, pre wedding prayers, other prayers and funerals. So who will you get for these Hindu life events. Someone you class as a “B” rated preacher.
This Asian wedding culture extends from music suppliers to the whole wedding industry. Some suppliers are so comfortable in their cliques that the package offered includes only certain recommendations across photography, cinematography, mandap suppliers, make up artists, event planners and caterers.
Don’t be fooled or surprised when these suppliers begin to exclude preachers names on social media to hide or cloud who they are informally tied via handshakes.
All it takes is a little bit of investigative observation of hashtags used on social media to tell you exactly who these cliques are. As for the preachers involved, how ethical "cliquey" behaviour is, is a matter for God to judge; but it does strike me as a slight conflict seeing as these same people profess to believe in God.
Of course operating in cliques may drive your value up (greed) and guarantee more events and perhaps even give you the status of legend.
However, Legends have in their history actually stood up for causes or conducted some form of help for the community. The legends were our forefathers; none of the current preachers are legends. The real legends in Hindu preaching are mostly older. They don’t use social media videos to obtain feedback and then post the videos in this way. If they post, it’s often real life things.
They perform their role with humility and peace, even though those around them judge them or knock them down. These legends are charitable and also will attend pre wedding prayers, funeral and other prayers; not just the lucrative wedding. Legends have standards and ethics. Independence even. You either believe in humanity, fairness and freedom or you don’t. You can’t be selective I’m afraid.
The Bollywood hype encourages preachers and suppliers to conduct happy clapping and at the end the preacher markets all their supplier clique mates. I don’t see this type of behaviour in a Church, Sikh event or Muslim event.
In olden times there was kinship amongst preachers, not anymore. But now I’ve noticed the manner in which preachers disrespect each other. Some are too great to communicate nicely with other peers. Some are so great that they blank the rest of us, siding instead with their DJ puppet masters. Remember, who is the slave in this.
If you send a happy Diwali message as a preacher to another preacher you will be lucky to get a response. Instead you are more likely to be told what to do by another preacher. Dictated to even. Are these legends.
It’s actually also quite shocking to see some preachers selling their partners as the best event planning service in newspapers, another conflict if you aren’t academically qualified in some way. Begs the question who in the editorial clique allows such blatant adverts.
If this is not shocking, stealing a DJ’s wedding music by sitting at the back and quietly recording it is rather odd wouldn’t you say. And then there’s the DJ who tells his preacher to tell another DJ not to play a piece of music or to face a lawsuit. Legends you say. Tit for tat. The behaviour of legends.
I have come to conclude, we are who we are by what we do and where we stand on issues. I certainly do not appear to have the same core values and ethics of some of my peers. And I am not measured by an outsiders gossip of me. I am measured by the actions I take and the kindness I share. Thank God.
You see people; we have made religious prayer events a show. For the middle class Indians and the youth thinking this is all somehow great I say this, be careful what you create. And that is demeaning our faith and heritage. Finally, let’s be real; to the non Indian suppliers in the industry, would you disrespect the treatment of preachers or weddings in your own faith. I thought not.