Gult Marriages!!!!

The other day i had been to one of friends marriage. Since he was a close friend of mine i had to take off from work to attend the function. And this has given me an oppurtunity to go through the entire process of a gult(for the uninitated its the Andhraites) marriage. I never had a chance to witness one though not even in my family :) . Somehow this whole process of marriage seemed very strange. Though i don't remember the exact sequence of steps it looked like its a big stack of events lined up without any breaks in between. As i was witnessing the whole process several questions were popping up in mind. Firstly why should the so called "muhurtham" be at those odd hours, say somewhere between 11pm - 04 am. I have rarely seen any gult marriage being conducted in broad day light other than the regular run away bride type of marriages. So why should the pandit decide this strange hours as good time to tie the knot? Well i am really not sure of the planetary physics involved in calculating this equation. Thats one aspect of marriage. But for this to occur the bride and the groom have to cross many hurdles. Imagine lotz of people attending the marriage wishing the blessed couple a prosperous and healthy life, while until the ceremony is over they have to starve and this depends on the events lined up on the day of marriage. some times the couple have to wait for food until all the poojas are perfomed and this may go on for hours for this is the only time where the priests mint money ( They feel that the longer they perform the pooja the more satisfied are the older generation and they are paid heavy tips) . While the couple is starving there are huge number of people who attend the marriage just for food :) For the couple and also the audience ( i mean people who attended the marriage) not to be bored there are some games designed soon after groom ties the three knots ( still not sure why it is restricted to only three) . This is a very nice strategy invented to keep the couple engaged otherwise who will sit for that many hours without food and without any entertainment. One of the games include searching for ring in a big bowl (where only 2 pairs of hands can pass through) of water, and who ever gets the ring wins the game. another game includes pressing each others foot - i guess this should be a nice stress buster along with pouring lots of rice on each others head. But one thing crosses my mind why would somebody spend laksh of money to perform this occasion. Probably same reason why you would treat somebody when you got your first job or got your first car etc. The finale of the functions ends with the priest showing a star (so called Arundati ?Nakshtra) to the couple. But i could never spot one during the phase when there are no stars in the sky - and the priest still aiming his pointed finger in the whole empy dark say and the couple desperately trying to spot the one. The couple tries to bear all this tiresome sequence of things for they know this is the beginning and in the coming days they have many more jhanjats in life to come across!!!