Weddings and Sangeet

Wedding season is on. It is a big deal for us. Our weddings are not solemn affairs. It is all haphazard and there is fun all around. We jump from one ceremony to another. Some involves the Pandit and some involve elders of the family or young girls or married ladies. There is no seriousness to any affair. People are laughing and joking. There is no Master of Ceremonies and no speeches given. People just flow from one room to the other in the Shaadi ghar. The photographs are not structured where each couple stands with their spouse and there is a pecking order to the relations. The photographer knows this too and doesn't insist on coupling for pictures or trying to balance the number of men and women in the pictures. There is a lot of movement and freedom. There are traditional wedding songs being sung for every step of the ceremony. In Gujaratis, the wedding songs have lot of humour on the Pandit, the bride and the groom and all their relatives. These songs are sung while the ladies clean the grains for the wedding. In Jharia, I remember all women friends and relatives invited every afternoon to clean the rice and wheat for the wedding. Then the 'Papad Beloing' would start. Women got their own 'Belan' or rolling pin for the same. Tea was made at home and given to all. We had steel cups and dishes. For years, my grandmother Gauri Bai did not eat in glassware or ceramic. We had the crockery which was used only when the guests came home. We ate food in steel. The house help ate in Aluminium plates with big edges like pans because they took lot of 'Usna Chawal' aka brown rice and 'maad' ie rice starch along with their food. SitaRam and Daivaa both liked to slurp and eat as they made balls of rice. This laughter and giggles of Sangeet happened daily a fortnight before the wedding. 

The first structured Sangeet I attended was for a Marwari wedding on the terrace of the 'Shaadi Bari' house. Young girls and Bhabhis ( daughters in law) of the house were all dancing to songs sung by the elderly women of the family. The steps of the dance were practiced. They were dancing in the centre of the room and dancing facing the women. The family men were trying to look disinterested but were dying to step in to dance. For me, Garba happened in the Sangeet. The bride and the groom got up to do only Dandiya Raas. They sat together on a sofa or a swing and watched Garba Raas where all the seventy year old Grandparents to the youngest nephew played Garba together on Gujarati Garba songs. When I am writing in English and thinking in Gujarati and then trying to make the memory not slip out before I finish typing it out, I mess up on the sequence. But Garba is all about dancing in a circle with everyone. No choreographed numbers for the wedding Garba Raas. I was very fascinated by the beautiful shy Marwari women dancing as there is no shyness in the Garba. The Sangeet of today s times are like the school Annual Day functions. Lot of practice sessions, colour and dressing themes, the bride doing an item number and saying I am a better dancer than all in my wedding crowd. Then the stage, the lights, the music which is mixed professionally and the choreographer, of course. The rest of the relatives have to sit and watch the stage performances and are not included in the skit. Then there is a lavish dinner and thankfully everyone enjoys that. 

In Jharia weddings, there was a sit down lunch or dinner. All sat on long 'Paat' wooden Aasan and food was served in 'Pattal'. There were no starters only 'Farsaan' like 'aloo vada' or batata vada as it is known in Mumbai. The women folk ate first and then the men. The young and agile men from the bride and the groom s side served the food. The bride or the groom s parents also sat to eat in the same 'pangat' albeit not together. There were certain key people in charge of ensuring there was a smooth flow of the food from the kitchen to the 'pangat'. This was a very important job. There was someone responsible to manage the Maharaj and his team as all food was freshly prepared on coal fire and in the absence of all kitchen gadgets. The women helped in the chopping or peeling of vegetables if it wasn't managed well by the cook. The water was kept in two large 'drums' like kegs and we had 'earthen glasses'. Breaking those glasses was fun in those days. All the garbage was organic and environment friendly. No confetti or silk or plastic moulds for decoration. Only fresh  local flowers and red and yellow reused cloth from the decorators. Every single stuff was sourced locally. Much later when I was studying in college, the Garba singers used to come from Kolkata. 

I love elaborate weddings where all is in sync. Who doesn't enjoy grand weddings? I am not someone who will think instead of spending so much, they should have given to the poor and the needy. Everyone celebrates weddings their way and with what gives them joy. The money spent gives employment to so many poor. Man is a social being and a wedding is a social event. 'Yahan har show off jayaz hai'. A simple home wedding which I had in my house for our friends was beautiful. Marigold flowers decorated all the doors and windows. We all sat around as the 'Pheras' happened. The Pandit who got this wedding done is now quite old. I still meet him at the temple in Juhu. I remind him of the wedding he conducted in our home, every time I greet him. He smiles as he gives me Charnamrut ( water with Tulsi )and some Prasaad.

I  always go home smiling from the beautiful weddings I attend and am a party to.