Our wedding rites

Like all other rites and rules, the wedding rites are also a legacy, but they need three reforms:

I do not see any good reason (in a country where 30 percent, is believed to be drastically malnourished), to shower rice grains, on the couple, as the ashirwad ceremony is performed.

Even if it signifies prosperity and fertility, food should not be wasted in that manner.

While I realize, that the amount of rice wasted (on all Parsi weddings, put together), may be to the 50th place of the decimal of the rice production in any one state, I feel it is immoral to waste any food product.

We follow at such rites an anachronistic practice of Ada Antar, by placing a white cloth between the boy and the girl. Is it really relevant today, when the boy and the girl have met a few hundred times before the wedding?

Why have we done away with the Sanskrit ashirwad — one of our five promises?

The Athornan Mandal should look into this matter seriously.

BEHRAM T. DASTUR