For weddings and a numeral

Delhi will host 14,000 weddings on November 28, newspapers and television news say.

Wonder where this figure came from? I suspect the first news item about this day of marriages that appeared in a leading daily newspaper is the culprit. It said 28,000 people are getting married on November 28.

I did not wonder where that figure came from. Any reporter worth his Class 10 math certificate could do that. November 28 and thousands of marriages, so just put 28 and thousands together and, bingo, 28,000 people. Accuracy can go get married, he got to put a figure that gets the story on Page 1.

Now the other papers and TV channels were not happy about missing such big breaking news, so they tried to come up with something new. Some value addition. It takes two to make one wedding. So they divided 28,000 by two and arrived at a new figure: 14,000. Oh yeah! There are 14,000 marriages in Delhi on one day, November 28.

Then they went to the traffic police looking for a quote on how would they manage the traffic on road. The traffic cop, eager to be quoted, said "we have made adequate arrangements". Then the TV news reporter went to a pandit, who said he is handling two marriages on one day.

Then they went to the ghodiwala, bandwala, ladduwala, mehndiwala, sabjiwala and now we have a full-blown news programmes on marriages in Delhi. And every programme starts with a figure. Twenty-eight thousand people will tie the knot tonight in 14,000 marriages in Delhi. Another came up with a value addition: Twenty-eight thousand people, including 14,000 women, will tie the knot tonight...

"An average Rs 10 lakh was being spent on each wedding taking the grand total to more than Rs 1,400 crore," PTI went ahead and put these words into an anonymous wedding planner's mouth.

Everyone wants some value addition. After all the first newspaper did a value addition this year. Last year, the same newspaper was the first to give a figure: 12,000 marriages on one day (November 27). This year they raised it to 14,000 and everyone else is adding value.

If you are good at maths, you can easily predict the next year's figure.