The wazwan
a multi-course feast that represents hospitality, community, and the valley's rich culinary legacy, has historically been the focal point of Kashmiri weddings, especially for the Muslim majority (more than 93% of the population). Its seven to fifteen dishes, including as rogan josh, yakhni, and tabak maaz, were served on big metal trays to promote community and had roots in centuries-old Persian and Central Asian traditions.
Even the impoverished are spending two to three lakhs to 'keep up', frequently by selling ancestral land or taking out high-interest loans. A single wedding can now cost seven to ten lakhs for middle-class families and over twenty lakhs for upper-class ones. A 2025 Greater Kashmir survey of 500 families in Srinagar and Anantnag found that 68% of them had taken on debt, with repayments typically lasting three to five years. This financial disaster is turning paradise into a pressure cooker; it is hardly a cause for rejoicing.
Approximately 50,000 Kashmiri women are reportedly older than the "conventional marriage age" of 25 to 30 due to the high costs
Families are therefore forced to sell their land, take out loans from sahukars at a rate of 24 percent interest, or wait until their late 30s to get married. Unemployment (the youth rate was 23% in 2025) exacerbates this, creating crushing demands that lead to stress, animosity, and even dangerous alternatives like "love marriages" or elopements in order to avoid paying for them. In a highly shared X post, a Srinagar worker wrote, "We go into depression unable to collect these luxuries—my daughter waits while I dig graves for tourists."
𝒁𝒆𝒉𝒂𝒓 𝒌𝒊 𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒆𝒉 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒚𝒂𝒂𝒏, 𝒒𝒂𝒓𝒛 𝒌𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒂𝒚𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒆,
𝑫𝒊𝒍 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒕 𝒋𝒂𝒂𝒚𝒆, 𝒈𝒉𝒂𝒓 𝒃𝒊𝒌 𝒋𝒂𝒂𝒚𝒆, 𝒌𝒉𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊 𝒌𝒂𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒔𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒂𝒍𝒆?
Author - 𝒀𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒓 𝑨𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒅
