Rs 55 lakhs for Joota Churai!

If you went wide eyed on reading that actress Shamita Shetty demanded Rs 5 lakh from her jijaji — millionaire Raj Kundra, to return his shoes after the ‘joota churai’ ritual at Shilpa Shetty’s wedding, now digest this.

If you went wide eyed on reading that actress Shamita Shetty demanded Rs 5 lakh from her jijaji — millionaire Raj Kundra, to return his shoes after the ‘joota churai’ ritual at Shilpa Shetty’s wedding, now digest this.

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At a recent wedding in a Delhi farm house, the bride’s sister pocketed a cool Rs 55 lakh for the same ritual. “We were stunned to see the saali being paid that much for a ‘token ritual’,” says a guest present at the party. Delhi is not known as the city of ostentatious show-off for nothing. The latest trend is to flaunt wads of notes at rituals like ‘cutting the ribbon’ and ‘joota churai’.

Divya Sharma, a media professional cordoned off her jeeju and sang songs till he agreed to fish out Rs 80,000. “I had asked for a lakh and he wasn’t agreeing. So I and my friends surrounded him and made sure his friends don’t come close to him. We kept singing joote le lo, paise dedo. After lot of bargaining, he agreed to give us Rs 80,000.”

Saloni Jhunjunwala, who got Rs 51,000 from her brother-in-law says, “The trick is to demand a figure you know you will never get and then trickle it down. We started with a lakh and got an amount we wanted.”

Call it show off or ego, the grooms seem only too keen to please the saalis. And the magnanimity is not limited to money alone, many saalis get jewellery as presents too. Says Radhika Bajaj who attended her cousin’s wedding, “I got Rs 51,000 and a ring.” Says Sheetal Gupte, “I didn’t even have to demand. I got Rs 20,000 and five gold bangles."