Only in India...

Sunday Times article:

Indian weddings rent pukka guests
Amrit Dhillon, Delhi

MIDDLE-CLASS Indians are hiring smooth conversationalists as guests at their children’s weddings to impress their relatives and business rivals.

In a country where weddings are an important indicator of social prestige, wealth and influence, families unable to attract the right quantity — or quality — of people are turning to a new “rent a guest” agency. Tall, light-skinned men are said to be especially prized.

The Best Guests Centre, based in Jodhpur, in the western state of Rajasthan, can offer up to 80 guests, dressed in traditional Indian clothes or suit and tie, to bump up numbers. They are briefed on the two families’ respective histories and given the names of the happy couple’s most important relatives.

“I got the idea when a friend of mine married a woman from a different caste,” said Mujahid Syed, 35, the agency’s founder. “Both families boycotted the wedding. Only a handful of friends turned up and it was very flat and quiet.”

Weddings in India are lavish affairs that sometimes last for many days, with everyone known to the family invited. At the 1999 wedding of his daughter, Laloo Prasad Yadav, a cabinet minister from the state of Bihar, invited 10,000 guests.

However, some families cannot produce a “decent” number of guests, either because relatives live too far away or because of internal feuds.

“Indian families are famous for being close but they’re breaking up,” said Sangeeta Sharma, a journalist. “There are so many conflicts over money and property that even uncles or brothers stay away.”

Syed offers three categories of guest. The “deluxe”, at £10, is a lofty, fair-skinned, English-speaking guest with an elegant line in small talk. The “standard” is educated, speaks Hindi but looks like the average local and costs £6.

The “budget”, at £5, is a Hindi-speaking school-leaver of darker hue, reasonably well groomed but less polished. They are under instructions to smile, be friendly, join in the dancing and singing, and appear to be having a rollicking good time.

“I’ve been to five weddings and no one has ever realised we are rented,” said Shamsher Haider, a “standard” guest who runs a textile business. “If someone asks me how I’m related to the bride or groom, I say I’m a distant cousin.”

Among the guests on Syed’s rolls are students, doctors, chartered accountants and small businessmen. Syed sells mobile phones when he is not hiring out wedding guests.

“I do it because you get good food, it’s a night out and there’s a happy atmosphere,” said Bhupendra Singh Gaur, 34, an estate agent. “And I know I’m helping people make their wedding more memorable.”