Wedding of Me? No No!! You got it wrong! I am takling about my cousin’s wedding. Actually I wrote a two pages long post for it and went to dinner. While chewing the delicious leg of chicken I bought two hours ago, I asked mum the details of marriage ceremony. She counted me the various little events that are part of a marriage and I was amazed. Because in marriages, I used to look for girls, sweets and treats from grandpa(he gave treats to keep us from starting trouble). I never quite noticed all these things. So decided to keep my ESSAY as draft.
And here is how TYPICAL marriage in MY VILLAGE happens. (Place: Karad, Maharashtra, India)
(Disclaimer for nuts(from my state) who think what they do is ONLY correct: All things I am gonna explain here, HAPPEN in my village, if in your place, people don’t do ANY thing like this, I don’t care, its not my fault)
My other friends, in some days, you will know why I am pissed off on some of my co-state frnds.
Start: My village is located in Maharashtra, India. Its near Karad town.groom
Wedding is most famous event in world. At my homeplace, for wedding, nearly all village gets invited. Everyone gives his/her best suit/saree a try and be ready to go. A vehicle (99% a truck) is kept ready to transport all people to wedding place which is MOST commonly GIRLS (bride’s) home.
The events started when we left groom’s home.
0. The groom left his home on a decorated horse. He traveled upto the boundary of village with a BAND and his friends enjoying, dancing in front of crowd. Then we took off for Bride’s home in car followed closely by truck full of people.
welcome1. On reaching on traditional boundary of host village, we were welcomed by group of old and honourable citizens. This event is called as “MEETING”. The groom then sits again on horse and the crowd walks  cheering and dancing on music of BAND leading the way.
2. On reaching the final place, a small event took place in which we aaawere offered sweets as welcome. A Pujari (“Hindu bramhin” person similar to the one who conducts wedding in church) did some traditional sort of things (procedures) after that.
3. The groom then again mounted on the horse and the crowd followed him to all Temples in the village. This is called as “SHREE VANDAN” meaning getting blessings from all the local gods temples. shreeFinally my cousin stopped at temple of lord “Maruti” (who is unmarried as per puranas) where he tried to make a necklase (Mani-Mangal sutra) for bride(as per tradition of course).
4. The groom returned to marriage place where some “married” women did POOJA of horse and grom. Its called “Washing legs of returnhorse” (this honour is for sisters of bride’s father) (Note: names of events can seem weird coz they are literal translations. In my mothertongue, they don’t sound ridiculas). Every woman is presented a gift from the groom this time.  😀
5. Haldi Ceremony: Next event was most IMP. The bride and groom seated side by side where all women applied termerichaldi(Haldi) to both of them. (See photo on left). I don’t know reason behind this event, may be I need to ask some very old grandma. But everyone thinks it as major event.
6. Now here comes a weird tradition. After Haldi, groom and bride take a bath with Haldi clothes on. Honour of pouring first mug of water is of the local barber in village. I never knew it tradition before because whenever I saw, I thought its local barber is our family pujarifriend or something thats why he is leading or helping. 😛
7. Marriage:Finally came the time of marriage. The Pujari (on right) announced that brides Mama(mother’s brother) and Grooms Mama should now bring them in. This announcement is so famous athat if  Pujari do not say it, we dont feel like being at wedding. And then answer to his announcement came from clouds. Lightning illuminated the place for a second followed by a thunderous sound. The rain was trying few drops when the couple was brought in the tent.
They stood facing each other, only separated by a white cloth held by two persons and some minutes. Two Mama’s stood behind their nephews. They had swords with a Lemon on tip in their hands. The Pujari then started singing lines called “Mangalashtaka”. Word is made from “mangal = good, holy” and “ashtaka = 8 liners”. So it means holy songs of 8 lines each ending with “Shubh Mangallllllllll Saaaawdhaaaaan……”. Rain decided to stay to see the marriage and ceremony continued and no one even tried to run for some cover. Everyone continued.
 At every chorus of ShubhMangalllll…., people threw(?) I mean poured coloured rice beans over the couple. The last song always contain last line as “Go celebrate do some firecrackers”. Earsplitting firecrackers are always blasted on perfect timing. One group of youngsters is dedicated to this.


The couple was united for not just lifetime but for 7 birth-death cycles (as oer puranas).
9. The couple then put “Ful(flowers) Mala” (Somebody suggest english word for this) to each other. The groom put the necklase called “Mangal Sutra” (which is favorite subject of Hindi Movies) around p1p2bride’s neck.
10. Then other small traditional procedures continued which contained “Kanyadan” (meaning giving[leterally- donating] daughter to groom) and “Yadnya” (see link).
11. Finally after the feast, people headed back to homes. The crying event 😀 by mother and other women from bride’s side (now wife of my brother) went on for some time. We brought our brother and sister-in-law home with joy. Following night was for celebrating. The new married couple goes around the village sitting in a Horse Cart(with two horses and decorated like hell) in nightlamps carried by some people. The groups of celebrating people dance in front of them on rocking music by accompaining BAND. its called “Varat” in Marathi (language). Varat continues late at night. Women who were unable to attend wedding stop them and meet them. Everybody who meets them give blessings and couple visit every temple and Local God’s places.
The traditions continue next five days.
I guess my brother will be able to go to his first HM after that. 😀 He is not complaining though because he likes these traditions and so do I. May be I am going to do all these things in my wedding just for sake of our great “Sanskruti”.

15 thoughts on “Wedding

  1. guess my brother will be able to go to his first HM after that….

    After so many rituals do they really have the energy for HM?
    anyways from ur first HM line im wondering… how many hms does he plan to have ?? 🙂

    i had recently attended a marriage of a friend in malvan, the rituals were similar but not this many

  2. Prax, Yes I asked him and he says yes. Now we will let them decide 😀
    And I missed some little rituals here. These are just on the day of wedding. There are some before and after marriage too. 😛

  3. Very interesting. I had marathi neighbours and they showed me some pictures of weddign ceremony but I wasn’t quite clear.
    ‘I never knew it tradition before because whenever I saw, I thought its local barber is our family pujari friend or something thats why he is leading or helping. :-P’ this was funny!!!

    and fulmala in english means garland.
    fruity 😉

  4. Garland? good! I will use it next time. And about the barber, its funny yeah, but when I asked some elders about it, they said if you know old structure of society then you will not find it that funny. Well its subject of a whole long article. And I will need to do some research before explaining anything.

  5. Looks pretty nice. But why are some of the men in Gandhi topis? I think locall turbans or other head dress would have been nice. Looking at the Gandhi topis one cannot help but think of some politics involved_ the image. The grooms turban looks nice. Nice coverage of the events. Thanks.

  6. Generally, old people wear it always, its nothing to do with any political party 😛 And I am strong believer of the fact that Congress is misusing it for years now. Turbans look nice, I know. Last wedding we arranged at our home, we had turbans for every person and the scene was really awesome. 🙂
    You are from?

  7. @ Suda- when I said funny I meant you!! Because of your stupid taken for granted fact that he was some relative. Its your ceremony and you yourself didn’t knew!
    HAHAHA..m still finding it funny..You don’t know your relatives…. 😀

  8. Suda,
    I am from Tamilnadu/Andhra, been in Africa for 4 years but here in the US for the last umpteen years.Now I am from the outside looking in. Thanks for your efforts and thanks for asking. Good luck!!

  9. Suda,
    Nice work Man…. I am very impresed. I didn’t know that marriage ceremonies in the Village are so complicated… 🙂
    Also good to see so many responses from so many people.
    Anyways BEST Wishes for your future work,, 😉
    Keep up the good work going on!!!!

  10. Pingback: Nominations So Far… « Visceral Observations

  11. Pingback: Final List of Nominated Posts « Visceral Observations

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s