Well here I am again after almost 9 months
in hibernation, I changed jobs, got busy, lost weight, then put on weight again
then lost again and the did all the usual stuff which people will tell you they
were doing which was keeping them busy but can never explain what most of these
things were. So I will not even try!!!
This post will be a 4 or 5 Part series
(yeah I have not even decided that) in which I would be giving my honest
observations and a dump of the crap my mind cooked up when I recently attended a true to the letter arranged Marwari wedding. I am a
Marwari and for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term let me give you a
crash course on Marwari culture & behavior patterns (I might lose half of
my readers after this, but be ready to be amazed).
Ø The Marwari or Marwadi are an Indian ethnic group that originates
from the Rajasthan region of India. Their language, also called Marwari, is a
dialect of Rajasthani and is a part of the western group of Indo-Aryan
languages. (Source: Wikipedia) – in summary we crawled out of Rajasthan &
then spread to other parts of India & the world
Ø We hate to be employed and all of us think we are born to be
entrepreneurs, most of us end up with failed businesses and debts which we
cannot repay – in summary we suffer from
mass delusion
Ø We look down upon women who wear crop tops, tank tops or shorts, yet
we worship Gods which are naked and also hold in high esteem morons who have
become lifelong devotees of these Gods and roam around naked – in summary we are hypocrites of the highest
order
Ø After the Punjabis most likely we have the worst possible diet in
the universe, we love stuff which is dripping in oil, everything has to be
fried and if it is not fried it has to be deep fried, the proportion of sugar
used in our sweets & desserts is as unbalanced as Kate Upton’s boobs to
waist ratio, and then to top it all we keep aside 10 days in a year where we do
not eat anything and consider that a service to God – in summary we are the consolidated encyclopedia of all the diseases
which can be caused by overeating, wrong eating & not eating
Ø We want our women & men to marry & have physical
relationships within the same community and our women need to remain virgin
till marriage however there is no such requirement for men – now if women are
remaining virgin till marriage & guys need not and they have to have physical
relationships in the same community, then who the hell are men fucking is a
dichotomy which I cannot resolve – in
summary we consider ourselves to be on a moral high ground however that high
ground does not have any foundation supporting it
Ø Finally we love weddings, over the top weddings, extravagant
weddings, any kind of weddings, our weddings are not a function or event but an
entire procession of activities which can exhaust the mightiest of the world – in summary we are complete show offs and
will go to any extent to impress random folks who don’t care about us
In
this post I am planning to cover customs & traditions starting from
Engagement (Tika) Ceremony to Mehfil or Sangeet. So let the festivities began
From here on in anything which is written in normal font & in this color is from the various
articles which I picked up describing each of the customs & traditions
(I was just too plain lazy to write them first before I provided my observations
on them) and anything
which is written in this color & this italicized font are my contributions.
Engagement
(Tika) Ceremony: Engagement
ceremony takes place at the home of the groom
with the intention that the poor chap can
be surrounded and not given any space to run away. The
ceremony makes match making official and binding for both bride and groom, I have never
understood why we have so many customs just to make something official and the
mass delusion that making something widely known makes it official, my biggest
point is most of the weddings do not even get registered in the court of law
and we believe just making something known to a large group of people make it
official. Only the bride's father,
brother and other close relatives attend this ceremony this is more of
a evolved tradition in these days of economic depression keeping the attendance
to a minimum is a cost saving measure. The
ceremony is called “Tika” because the bride's brother actually applies a tilak
to the groom's forehead which you can also read as the mark to shoot if the groom
mistreats her daughter in any way and
makes the alliance or engagement official – like we need more circus to make something
official without getting any official authority involved. A sword and other
presents including clothes, fruits, sweets etc are also given to the groom
– the sword
is basically an option given to the groom to cut himself to pieces while he
still has a chance. Females are not even given that option.
Ganapati
Sthapna (installation) and Griha Shanti (Peace at Home) Ceremony: Ganapati
sthapana (Installation
of Lord Ganesha) & griha shanti (Peace at home) takes place a couple
of days before the wedding – so the inherent purpose of this custom is the
acknowledgement that this is the last time this house will have peace since
after marriage peace goes out of the window.
A havan (purifying ritual) is
conducted by the bride/groom's family, which involves the installation of the
idol of Lord Ganesha – installing an idol made of sand/silver/gold etc and the
belief that it will bring peace is as good as believing marriage of Kim
Kardhashian & Kanye West will last a lifetime.
Pithi
Dastoor (read it as rubbing your face in
turmeric) Ceremony (Ban): The pithi dastoor is one of the first important among the way
too many that by the end you will lose count of ceremonies, which
involves the bride/groom and continues until the day of the wedding. The actual
ceremony consists of application of turmeric and sandal wood paste to the
bride/ groom – it is the most hideous ceremony which you can think of with all the
Schwarzkopf, Loreal, Estee Lauder beauty products out there what do we come up with
stinking turmeric powder and that too one day before the wedding, give me a
freaking break – bathe the bride & groom in Christian Dior, YSL or Chanel
why turmeric powder- because we are fucking cheap & like to torture people.
Custom goes that once the pithi starts the bride
and the groom cannot leave the house. You would find this underlying theme of
groom being grounded or under house arrest consistently throughout a Marwari
wedding – I will let you in on the secret reason for that, we believe our women
to be feeble & submissive hence we assume that they are not going anywhere
but we don’t trust our men to be brave enough to take the big step so we
continuously watch them and try to keep them under house arrest. So in a
nutshell we believe our females to be like “Sita” from Ramayana but our guys to
be like George Clooney (Disclaimer: Similar
to George Clooney only for commitment issues not for looks , warning don’t be
misled)
The pithi dastoor at
the bride's house is an elaborate affair – I find the sentence
itself amusing like any other affair is not elaborate and over the top. The bride dresses in a traditional
orange poshak – like so far she was allowed to dress in tank tops and hot
pants seriously it is a marwari wedding the use of word tradition itself is
over bearing and is then brought under a
silken canopy, which is held with the help of swords on the four corners by
four ladies who must belong to the same clan as the bride – so this “same
clan” requirement has been relaxed now a days but basically you can read as these
four ladies are basically the bride’s bitches and BFFs and hold the biggest
center of power at the wedding. She is
brought to the ladies gathering, who then apply the paste to her – so these are
other bitches who want to take their frustration out on the bride and let me
segregate them in two categories for you first one is “bitch we got married
earlier and are now suffering why are you so happy, here turmeric paste on your
face”, the other group is “bitch I used to date a hotter guy in college how
come you are getting married before me, here turmeric paste on your face”. Also
since we are on this topic I should mention that during this ceremony the bride
is in her bathing clothes which are of orange color so although we are
hypocrites who as I said earlier look down upon women who wear revealing
clothes yet we are fine with selective nudity on occasions which are conveniently considered part of our fucked up tradition.
A similar ceremony takes place at the groom's house as
well, although it is not as elaborate – I am going to say this once and not repeat
it again the groom is the most ignored underrated character in a Marwari
wedding, he barely has any purpose or existence – the guy from the catering
company serving starters before dinner garners more attention than the groom. Dholans (women
singers with dholak) sing auspicious pre-wedding songs while the ceremony is in
progress –
from whatever I have heard at the weddings I have been part of it is not
signing but a lot of random noise coming from aged females who need not be but
still want to try and be center of attention, I have never been able to
identify any major or minor musical chords in whatever they claim to be
singing. Their singing is similar to a live rendition of a Michael Bay movie
lots of special effects but you are left wondering what the fuck was the
meaning of all that (Disclaimer:
Expect a Michael Bay movie experience but don’t bet on finding a Megan Fox out
there at the wedding I still haven’t). It is interesting to note that dholans are omnipresent
in throughout the Marwadi wedding celebrations – attention whores. They are accompanied
by the Shehnai and the nagara players – more attention
whores & sluts, run while you can they will still find you and rape your
ear drums after they are done with you, you will not feel molested but mutilated
(the last sentence almost sounded like the punch line of a B grade horror
movie)
Mehfils
(Sangeet) (Music & Dance Party): Mehfils are the
integral part of a Marwari wedding
– again I hate the use of
language if Mehfil/Sangeet is integral part are other customs peripheral
parts!!! Everything is integral other than the groom of course. These are usually
held in the evenings – yeah because the day was already packed with
whatever we talked above, obviously by the time the bride & groom take the turmeric
shit & stink off their bodies it is bound to be evening. Separate mehfils are organized for the women and
the men –
this custom is also relaxed these days and mehfils
are generally with Men & Women together – one reason for that is the aged
folks who can’t participate in these activities actively engage in match making
and try and plan the next six weddings which they can go to.
At the ladies'
mehfil, all the womenfolk gather at a central place in an enclosed courtyard or
hall. Dressed in dazzling dresses – ok this is
something which I agree to as far as dresses at our wedding so we can put and
LED or CFL light to shame, they perform the ghoomar (a special dance done in a group) – the dance is
less of a dance more of random limbs flailing around most of the folks who
dance at these events are Justin Bieber & Miley Cyrus wanna bes (imagine
how degrading is that itself that someone being called a Justin Bieber wanna be
when he himself is a huge wanna be) There are kids who are put on stage by
their parents just to get rid of them for some time so that they can check the
food counters out, then there are teenagers who have been brainwashed into
believing by their grandparents and relatives that they are good dancers
irrespective of no formal training and in multiple cases suffering from obesity
(remember we love food dripping oil, fried & deep fried), following that is
a bunch of middle aged relatives taking the stage who can confuse anyone with
their attempt to dance as whether they are trying to dance or they are just
people with uncomfortable bowel movements, and finally the grand show
culminates in an old hag who has her 1.78 feet out of 2 in the grave taking the
stage providing an illusion that she is overjoyed with the wedding of the bride
but in reality she is just ecstatic that someone is paying attention to her
after almost a couple of decades. The bride at the mehfil is given an important
position to sit and watch the proceedings – yeah just like the lamb is fed a feast before its
sacrifice or the message could be that today you are watching a circus be ready
after marriage your life would be a circus and we will have a front row seat
and you would be the main act. Of course, the men have their own mehfil, where
singers perform and these are strictly all male parties – this does not
happen if you leave all the males of a marwadi family alone all that you will
have is a gay party not a mehfil/Sangeet party continuing with the theme of
ignoring the men they are given a corner place to silently sit & watch the
proceedings.
So that concluded the first part of
this series and we have successfully survived through the Sangeet, in the next
post we would begin from the morning of the day of wedding. We will start from “Mahira Dastoor” (read
is as organized extortion in full day light in the eye of public view) and end
with “Sindhoor parampara” (Red Powder Ceremony) so we don’t even leave any
color untouched we started with generally a white “Tilak/Tika” moved to
stinking yellow turmeric and will continue to red “Sindhoor” like wedding blues
themselves were not enough.
See you for Part 2 of Tales of Great
Marwari Wedding, the circus continues......
