INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

the woman. Emotionally these suhag songs express the woman’s uprooting and separation
from her family and home and the unknown fate she will have to adjust to. The
lyrics of suhag songs are often structured as dialogues between the bride-to-be and
her father, who tells her to bow to the inevitable. The songs sung at the house of the
groom are called ghorian and are usually composed as blessings of the mother and
sisters to the knightly groom who will go to meet his bride. At this event the women
may tie a turban on their head and jestingly imitate the groom amid great laughter.
The sisters will also tie a thread around his wrist which is to be opened by the bride
after the wedding
On the evening prior to the wedding day the bride, her bridesmaid(s), and
other women of the house will gather for a program with food, music and ceremonies
to prepare the girl for the wedding. In a Khatri family the bride-to-be and her chosen
bridesmaid sat on a small wooden chair on the floor to have their untied hair and
heads repeatedly brushed with oil mixed with herbal power by female relatives. The
women fed the bride with sweets, some of which were sent from the groom’s house.
To bring good luck to the marriage the ladies of the house repeatedly waved money
bills over the bride’s head (sirvarna) and stepped five times over the wooden pall on
which bride had been seated. The women would then offer the bride thick brown
henna (mehndi) to be used for dying her hands and feet with ornamental designs. The
ceremonial beautification of the bride is connected with ideas of her good fortune in
the house of her in-laws. As one saying goes, if the applied henna turns out very dark
on the hand of the bride it is a sign of the affection of her mother-in-law to be.
Women therefore try to make the henna color as dark as possible. Sometimes the
hands of the groom are similarly decorated with more simple henna designs or just a
small mark to indicate that he is getting married. Like most events in the Punjabi
culture there are special songs associated with mehndi to communicate sentiments of
the marriage preparations.
The night before the wedding the groom’s maternal aunt (mami) and other female
relatives dress up in beautiful clothes and organize a night procession of light
called jago. Whereas women used to arrange the jago procession after the groom and
the marriage procession had departed from the house (barat) to wake up people and
convey the message that a fortuitous event was about to occur, it has more recently
become a ceremony that is performed on the evening or night prior to the wedding.
On this occasion the groom’s maternal aunt carries a decorated pitcher on her head,
sometimes with a coconut or lit flour lamps placed on top of the pitcher. The women
walk to a well in their neighborhood or the nearby gurdwara to bring water which is
mixed with water used for the ritual bathing the day after. The women sing and
dance in company with a team of folk musicians and teasingly ask the groom for
return gifts for bringing the water.
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008