The great wedding season is in progress, and for the socially mobile there’s a wedding or two to attend every other day. The lights, the decorations and the guests are part of the scene, and the lucky bride and bridegroom, dressed up to the nines, are usually the cynosure of all eyes.

Darting in and out of these glamorous affairs, one can’t help notice the caterers and the smart young lads and lasses in dressed in black and white who help with the service. The wedding season is a windfall for the working class lads and lasses, and these youngsters earn as much as 300 rupees a night or three thousand for a week-long stint.

Prem has been working as a catering assistant over the past three years, ever since he has been in the eleventh standard. ‘It’s much needed money that I used to help pay my school fees,’ he said, ‘even though working from 4 pm to midnight meant that I was very sleepy for classes the following day. I usually worked on Fridays and Saturdays’. Today 20 year old Prem is a catering contact man. ‘I strike a deal with the caterer, who is usually a hotel or dhaba service. Just yesterday there was an assignment in Muzaffarpur. It was a big show. I supplied 20 boys who made Rs 400 each. They wanted good looking decent guys, so they were ready to pay more. I managed to earn about four thousand rupees from the contract. I have to be responsible for the dress and the behavior of the guys, to see that they do not pilfer cold drinks or beer, because if this happens, I will not get paid.”

People are spending more and more on weddings, and now there are several occasions that have been turned over to wedding planners and event managers. These organizations are always on the lookout for human resources. “What you need is a couple of crisp white shirts, a sober looking pair of trousers, usually black, a tie, and black shoes. That is enough to help you make about 5,000 rupees over one lagan season,” says Ravi, a commerce student from Kalasaher village in Sasaram, who came over to Patna just to work during the wedding season. ‘It’s honest labour, and that kind of money is enough to sustain me for a couple of months at home,” he says.

It’s not only the boys who work as waiters. The girls are also there to wait tables. Each girl gets about 1200 rupees for one session, while we boys get a third of the amount. The girls are handled by ‘very strict madams’, says Prem. ‘They stand behind the dishes at buffets and serve the guests. That is their work. They do not mingle among the guests. The boys are the ones who have to fetch and carry.’

On the whole, however, it’s a nice evening job, free food, a chance to be on the sidelines and watch the rich and famous, and if you’re very lucky, somebody may even hand you a tip out of boozy generosity, says Mehtab, who joins his friends not for the money, but for the fun of it.

But being a catering supervisor has its headaches as well. ‘Recently, my client was furious, a couple of my newer boys walked off with six beer bottles each. They were caught, and I had to forfeit my fees. So one has to be really tough to handle some of the characters,” says Prem, who now wants to go into Hotel management and catering. ‘I took this job as a time-pass thing, but now I find I’m really interested in making it big in the service industry,’ he says.

-Frank Krishner-

  Dateline Bihar, Frank Krishner