The Wedding Brigade : Adarsh Brides of India by Mallika Singh
Artist Mallika Singh, through this artwork, depicts the stereotype of an ideal (Adarsh) bride in the form of a chart, looping in the diversity of the nation and using each state’s state animal as the face of the bride, in order to establish ‘ the kind of brides available’.
It is no surprise that the Indian wedding is no longer an Indian wedding, but The Big Fat Indian Wedding. While it manages to rope in huge numbers in expenditure, and is mostly a larger than life affair, it has a certain flip side to it. On one hand people spend whole-heartedly trying to perfect the most important day of their lives, but on another, the entire effort manages to cloak within itself a harsh reality, still very much alive.
The marriage turns into a wedding, becoming greater than the purpose of it, downrightly swooping down to status symbols and obnoxious, stereotypical demands, which more often than not, are asked from the bride and the bride’s side. The evident proof is carried in the matrimonial sections of newspapers, defining the ‘kind’ of bride that they’re looking for, at times fuelled by the diversity of the country, completely neglecting the dignity of the woman who may end up in that marriage.
The ultimate ridicule is that while these expectations are expressed in all seriousness, the facade of liberal open mindedness is also kept functioning, like two poles of a hypocritical magnet.
This notion of the ‘ideal’ and all its strings attached needs thorough slaughtering to give a solid kick to the gut of the patriarchal expectations erupting from the false sense of entitlement, if not entirely kill it.
I decided to enter into a subtly bring some light to it all through art, by executing it in the form of an ideal (adarsh) bride chart, looping in the diversity of the nation and using each state’s state animal as the face of the bride, in order to establish ‘ the kind of brides available’
Artist: Mallika Singh Category: Digital Art, Illustrations Location: Delhi
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