Glimpses of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s wedding were reassuring and heartwarming.... Shri Radhe

In the visuals of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s wedding to Gurpreet Kaur on Thursday, there was a sense of heavily-painted curtains parting to offer a heartening glimpse of normal life backstage...

Amid apocalyptic headlines, it is reassuring to catch sight of a member of the ruling political class doing something so ordinary as getting married. In the visuals of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s wedding to Gurpreet Kaur on Thursday, there was a sense of heavily-painted curtains parting to offer a heartening glimpse of normal life backstage.

The nature of politics, with its brutal cut-and-thrust and high-stakes power play can make its practitioners seem remote to the aam aurat and aadmi. Politicians may be representatives of the people but only rarely, despite the facade of intimacy created by social media, do they seem of the people. To watch one such representative — a chief minister, to boot — get married felt like a humanising revelation. This was especially so because it was a small and intimate ceremony, the happy couple posing with the mother of the groom, a menu that offered regular wedding fare, like vegetable jalfrezi, dal makhani and gulab jamun. There were only a few lal batti guests, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha. This is in sharp contrast to the big, fat Punjabi wedding, with large numbers, lavish multi-cuisine buffets and luxurious venues. Or the showy political wedding where the guest list is as much a demonstration of power and clout as a floor test.

Ever since he took oath of office on March 16, Mann has had much on his plate. His government has inherited a deepening agrarian crisis, a drug problem that can’t simply be wished away, a resurrected spectre of separatist politics and a broken economy that finds it hard to keep pace with the aspirations of Punjab’s young. But even a chief minister must have a life away from the daunting challenges of his job. Lakh lakh vadhaiyan to the newly-weds!..

Om namo shivai Rudra..i ..