Wedded to ostentation

The big fat Indian wedding has become a craze

On specific metrics of economic performance such as per capita income, poverty, gross domestic product (GDP), and so on, the People’s Republic of China outstrips India by a long margin. On soft power, it is fair to say that India dominates, with Indian cuisine, Bollywood and yoga. Increasingly, however, India is gaining a global reputation for another element of soft power — the Big Fat Indian Wedding. It is uncertain whether the image is entirely benign. One of the many ironies of this notoriously unequal country is that the uber-lavish spending has earned the Indian wedding its somewhat dubious global