Marriage, wrote Shakespeare, is a blessed bond of board and bed. It is obviously a private arrangement that people, for some strange reason, want to make public with a vengeance. And some, like the home minister Sudesh Mahto, stretch it to absurd lengths by reportedly feeding a lakh of people, 90 per cent of whom possibly had their first sumptuous meal in years when the minister finally got married. It was a politically smart thing to do because knowing our countrymen, people will be so grateful for his act of benevolence that they will keep voting him back to power for years to come ? and keep recalling the feast to the next generation.

The man in his early 30s has clearly done well for himself. Although he started off working as a bus agent, say people close to him, and supervised the transportation of stone chips for a contractor for some time, the new state has been good to him. Even his private secretary is said to have done well for himself; so the minister must have done even better. This writer once overheard two gentlemen boasting that they had done the landscaping for the house the minister built at Morabadi; and how the minister sponsored their trips all over the country to collect exotic plants and stones. He apparently paid a hefty amount as fees as well.

It reminded me of an encounter with the research guide of my wife. The gentleman was a scholar and had a pretty daughter for whom he was looking for a match. We landed up one day at his home and found the family gathered to discuss the respective merits of prospective grooms. We, too, got involved in the discussion when the professor?s septugenerian mother stopped all conversation. The Income Tax Officer, she declared firmly, was the most suitable groom because he had been in service for just two years and yet managed to build a house, buy a car and got his sister married in style. The other family members were embarrassed and we, too, escaped. But the moral of the story is that the professor?s daughter did finally marry the ITO. By that token, it is no surprise that the home minister was deemed the ?most eligible bachelor? by a somewhat hysterical media.

One of course expects the minister to receive a notice from the Income Tax department. But in this country, tax returns are curiously deemed to be private and confidential. So, one might never come to know the explanation that he finally provides. It is unlikely to be much different though than the one offered by the redoubtable Lalu Prasad, who claimed that his supporters paid for the expenses incurred at the wedding of his daughters. Politicians have in the past claimed to have been left a fortune by anonymous donors and well-wishers and Sudesh Mahto himself has clarified that in his community, guests themselves provide for the feast!

That the government machinery would go overboard to oversee arrangements for the ministerial wedding would have come as no surprise. It must have been distasteful but people here have lived with such bad taste for a fairly long time. After all, governments exist for the ministers and are run by them. So, if the government moved in to lay a 35-kilometre concrete road to ensure a smooth ride to the couple, or electrified the bride?s village in practically no time, it simply was not news. But if some enterprising reporter does file for information under the Right to Information Act, one suspects the government will claim both the road and the electrification was carried out by well-wishers. Because chances are there will be no mention of them in government books, so that it is spared the embarrassment of replying to inconvenient questions.

To give the devil his due, Sudesh Mahto could have flaunted his wealth in many other ways as well. Indians like flamboyant weddings and families like to flaunt their wealth and power at wedding-time. The world?s richest Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, took over the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta to hold a reception after the wedding of his son. When his daughter got married, he of course chose Paris and held the wedding at the Verssailes palace grounds.

Sant Singh Chatwal, the NRI hotel magnate based in New York, got his son married in India and flew in plane loads of guests from the United States and Europe. The event managers were apparently told to ensure that during their stay in this country, none of his guests should have to put his hand in his pocket. Well, Sudesh Mahto may not be Sant Singh Chatwal but he could certainly have organised an opulent reception in the state capital. By not doing so, he did the politically correct thing and turned his wedding into a political opportunity of marshalling men and material.