November 8, late evening, Darjeeling. Wedding preparations are in full swing in the Agarwal household. Hunched around the bed, all four family members are busy stuffing money in envelopes—to be given to the extended family and in-laws in the soon-to-begin functions. Just then, a flurry of news alerts on their phones inform them that five hundred and thousand rupee notes are junk from now on. The festivities abruptly cease. They are in a huddle again, this time to figure out what to do with all that cash. The next day, the groom, Ritesh Agarwal, his thoughts of a honeymoon in Bali rudely interrupted, is queuing up at his local bank branch.
Best-laid marriage plans have gone kaput, parents of brides and grooms are in a tizzy and the just-begun great Indian wedding season all over the country is on the rocks. “Less than a month away from the wedding, when all the payments have to be made, we are in a fix,” says bride-to-be Dhwani Sheth, a psychologist in Kolkata. She says the Rs 2.5 lakh withdrawal scheme for people who can prove there is...
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