Spurthi Kolipaka: Bride who let Love grow through an Eco-Friendly Wedding

When almost everyone chooses to spend exorbitant money on their weddings, there are few who believe in saying by Wendell Berry, “The Earth is what we all have in common.” Spurthi Kolipaka, a previous consultant with UNICEF and Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India, is one of those rare brides who preferred having sustainable wedding than adding to carbon footprint of her D-day! Born in Secunderabad, Spurthi grew up as a sensitive child who always favoured to go strong in making the world a better place. She shares how she migrated to Mumbai to pursue social work at twenty-four. Her first event was to visit a dumping ground where she was led to smell the stench; there were children playing and women and men working amid the hazardous conditions. In that very moment, she consciously knew she had to lessen her waste generation in every possible way! During her years in rural Mumbai when she was involved in work projects with Kathkari Tribal communities, who faced water crisis, Spurthi promised herself to

stop buying distilled water bottles— how could she drink her ‘safe’ plasticbottled water around those who would walk several kilometres to fetch a bucket or two of diluted water! She told herself, “Even if I would have to suffer the consequences of drinking polluted water, I should be honest with people in the community.”

She certainly ended up be diagnosed with typhoid and hospitalised for a week. Many called her imprudent. She called it a ‘living reality.’ While working in Karnataka, she met a family whose daughter wished to study medicine, but they had to save for her wedding dowry and in Telangana, she indeed knew how prodigal Telegu weddings burden brides’ families while it is taken for granted only as stipend for grooms’ ‘visionary start-ups’.

She recalls, when she gathered courage to ask her parents about her aunt who was burnt alive for dowry demands—as a grim reminder of her own family’s trauma—, she was motivated to fight the system even more. She resolute, “When ‘Personal is Political’, I have to make a statement—in all ways and forms available!” Determined, she wondered what a better way could be than to give a modern twist to the traditional weddings as well as conveying to younger cousins and older relatives to aspire for more gender-equal and ecofriendly lifestyles and weddings. Spurthi and Prashanth chose to exhibit importance of mindfulness on the grandest occasion of their life. They prepared themselves to humbly revolt against the society, and started to talk about eco-friendly weddings amongst people. They planned the ecological marrying!hey took a year to persuade their parents to let them invite only the immediate relatives; their parents had to bear the burden of navigating future with the hurt, complaining relatives. Then, the relatives were invited through e-wedding cards and video calls! Spurthi narrates, “It was difficult in the beginning, because it does feel like social exclusion in our Indian communities, especially since we have big extended families, but we took the first step with belief that everyone will understand and bless us abundantly regardless their personal attendance! So, although it was our parents who initially were anxious, they also found strength in the wider community who later appreciated them for leading an example.”

Spurthi and her family organised for pre-wedding rituals at their home; they chose traditional pandiri and rented chairs from local tent house. There were no extra decorations at home; instead, the premises was filled with lush plants, happy wedding songs, carol laughter, and a lot of joy. The wedding was destined to happen at picturesque Ahuja farms that offered open-air lawns and dining space for twenty-four hours at mellow cost of fifty thousand. Day-time wedding during monsoon gave away the unnecessary need of lighting and air conditioning; the early morning sun and pleasant wind made the entire event more tender—they surely had a risky bet while praying for no rains to happen though. Instead of putting flexy banner at the entrance, Prashanth painted a canvas for confirming the venue and later to adorn a wall of theirs to cherish the memory. The holy mandap was decorated with locally sourced flowers while the plush trees set the splendid background. The bride adorned white, handloom saree worth only thousand rupees and mostly borrowed jewellery and the groom complimented her in white handloom pattu pancha.

Spurthi reveals, “We had zero-plastic policy for the wedding. We borrowed steel cutlery and dishes from our relatives and friends for celebratory meals at home while food at the wedding was served on banana leaves; we even asked our guests to carry their own water bottles and definitely not to bring gifts, especially wrapped in plastic.” Smiling, she continues, “All these ideas were undoubtedly ridiculed in the beginning, but in the end, it all went well!” For, as a progressing ecofeminist, Spurthi remembered to contradict dowry/katnalu of all kinds, she opposed all sorts of gifts like adapaduchu katnam for the groom’s sister, battala katnalu for immediate relatives and their children, and return gifts to guests. She suggests, “These things increase financial burden on bride’s family and so, often families prefer sons to having daughters.

Not only we should challenge this, but also should reduce purchase of such things for the sake of the environment.” Spurthi did even choose not to have practice rituals like ‘kanyadan’ and ‘appagintalu’ as being exclusively made for women. After a few months of her wedding in June 2022, in October 2022, she was selected for the Doctoral Research Program in line with her sustainability cause at the University of LEEDS, UK. She was one of the three international candidates selected by the University under their prestigious funding program, Water-WISER (Water and Waste Infrastructure Systems Engineered for Resilience), Centre for Doctoral Training, supported by the UK Government. The journey that began for Spurthi in 2013, continued until her momentous wedding day, and is yet going on as future holds incredibility for the cheerful bride.

She ends her conversation saying, “We possibly won’t shove our ideology down others’ throats, but it is important to reframe sustainability conversations to ensure people understand why it is imperative to take care of the environment, perhaps without even having to compromise on the aesthetics of life.”