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Weddings are, according to the Ministry
of Finance, a huge drain on family finances but a great
boost to the national economy. This is because huge
amounts of money are spent annually on new outfits,
shoes, bags, and repeat sessions at beauty salons (rumored
to be around 17% of Pakistan’s GNP). Women throw
open their closets every season to realize with horror
that the six outfits they had made three months ago
are now totally defunct, which calls for six new outfits,
with coordinating accessories. Fashion designers delight
in changing the styles every season, from short shirts
to long tents, bell bottom shalwars to trouser pants,
and long flowing dupattas to short hankies, planning
the designs in such a stealthy way that nobody can predict
what’s going to be “in” come the following
spate of weddings.
As if this wasn’t enough,
going to a wedding requires a gift of money to be made
to the bride and groom to help them start their new
life together. In the most elite circles, a thousand
rupees is the customary amount, but your proximity to
the newlyweds will increase your wedding tax exponentially,
to the point where you might be spending the money you
saved for your children’s college education simply
by attending several weddings in one season. At the
very least you will be giving away the rough equivalent
of a plasma screen television or a first-class ticket
to Bangkok to all the people whose weddings you have
decided to grace with your presence. Some people are
growing wise to the massive loss of money in kharchis,
so they instead decide to recycle their own wedding
gifts that were never opened (even reusing the original
packaging and wrapping paper). But sometimes this trick
backfires when the new couple opens their
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