The ultimate marriage date was
coming close. Preparations were going on. Indian marriages have lots of rituals
before marriage. Those rituals started with a bang. We used to practice dance
every night. Few years back, it was really easy to get people together, but now
everyone is grown up. They have their own life and hence become difficult to
get them together. Anyway, we still got a bunch of people to rock the stage. As
per tradition, we asked everyone who would like to perform, some said no and
others yes. Eventually, we had around 13-14 performances which were enough for
fun.
I guess, I skipped some rituals
before dance night. The first was “Jawara bona”. Plant wheat seeds, which are then
considered as Goddess. By this date, house was filled with many guests. It’s
considered good, people are taking time off to be in the marriage, to
celebrate. Even with recent trend, there were enough guests. In night time, we
used to have formal dance practice, followed by dinner and free form dance.
The second ritual was Haldi
(Turmeric). It is applied 5 days in advance and then every day until marriage.
It brings out natural color of skin and considered good. From this day onwards,
the bride and groom are considered godly and are not supposed to do any of the
household chores. It’s awesome. You are not even supposed to take water and
drink on your own, someone will hand it over to you, quite interesting.
The 3
rd ritual was
Mehandi (Heena). A temporary tattoo applied to all the close family members. It
was not applied on me as it was scheduled the next day being the Groom.
4
th comes a special
one-which announces that marriage is near is Mata Poojan. All close family
members’ visits a temple and worships Goddess and invite them to the wedding.
It was cool, me and many family members gathered on this day. It was just 2 days
before marriage, hence most of the people were there. We went temple dancing
and came back the same way. We even danced in the temple.
Then mehandi was applied on me.
It’s good to take some rest after that, so that we are not disturbing the wet
tattoo and allowing it to dry for better color. The longer it stays, better it
becomes. I also applied some oils on top, so that it remains intact. It’s said
that more color means more love. Looks like it might be true.
In the evening, we worship the
God with dance and colors. I was still sleeping by this time. Relatives woke me
up and called down. It was a colorful atmosphere; everyone was dancing and
blowing color.
Those are the best times
in anyone’s life. This is the 5
th ritual, known as Satsang.
At first, there was no plan of
dance night (Mahila Sangeet). Then we booked a small hall and in the end it was decided to take
it to another level and book hall in the marriage garden itself. The hall was
small, so people gave all their attention on the performances. Sounds like
blessing in disguise. There were plenty of people even for the dance night. We tried
to keep it small, but even these few people were enough to fill the hall
completely.
