I was surfing through channels an hour ago, avoiding my mother from watching 'Swayamvar, Season 3'. Unfortunately for me the planets had lined up, for me to watch that hideous display of "love?!" What began with three men, in traditional wedding attire, entering raring to go home with a wife, ended with "Sagaai ho gayi, badhaiyan ji badhaiyan!!
My problem isn't so much that they call it a swayamvar and then don't get married but it being made an open for all drama. Swayamvar's or Swayamvara's have been an ancient practice. Swayam in Sanskrit means self and vara means choice or desire (which is also synonymous with bride-groom). Draupadi, Sita, Damayanti all have chosen husbands through this practice, and good one's, might I add :P.
Somehow, NDTV Imagine managed to take the worst, most dramatic aspects of the practice and make Swayamvar season 3. I haven't watched season 1 or 2, but with the bride being Rakhi Sawant (1) and the groom being a relatively screwed up guy, Rahul Mahajan (2), I can take the liberty to say they might have been equally bad, if not more.
And this show is inspired by one of the most watched reality shows in the USA, the Bachelor, Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad series. Season 15's finale with Brad Womack garnered 10.9 million viewers and a 7.0 rating/11. Not that I like watching the Bachelor, but there is just something so unnerving about the Indian version that sends chills down my spine, which even Aahat (a horror show) didn't manage.
Staging a Swayamvara was always seen as a show of power of the father of the bride/groom. Here that girls father I'm sure, didn't even have a say.
I know there will be a Season 4, heck if Bigg Boss can go on so can this 'wedding saga.' All I have to say is, maintain some dignity people, I mean, after you leave, like it or not you have to spend your life with that man/woman with you.
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