Larka, Larki Aur Smartee

wow!!
my wedding was such a blur to me...what with being exteremely sick during the entire thing...ur experiences are fascinating!!
=)

A very good description of the first encounter with inlaws and HIM...I must say I was laughing the hell out of me..brilliant.

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We need more writing like this here on CHOWK.
Enjoyed it thoroughly.
I hope that we see a lot more here from this author.

Ras

Shehlah
naw, momentary lapse that was...its definitely going to be a 5 people wedding, followed by a five month honeymoon ;)
hokay, if ure a toe ring person as appears from the article, check out the chandi man outside chawla centre at tariq road...toe rings that will make you feel like a princess..baaki vaad maa vaat karsoo

Cheers!

Wah! Excellent read and fun too! These maraasim are a wonderful aspect of Subcontinental culture and it will be a real shame if they are abandoned and lost in the rush to `modernise`. Very well written piece too. :-)

I was especially interested in the naat ceremony--I wasn`t aware they still did that at weddings! Masha Allah. What did you call it--Milaad?

This reminds me of the wedding descriptions in the book Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali--a brilliant read set in post 1857 Delhi. (Actually I might do a review of it some time for Chowk...)

Re saad: the joota chupai did happen... on the chauthi though and not at shadi or mehndi.

Re Farhan and Snow: Yes there is so much more detail to add to the above but really the article got a little too long for my liking too! Kudos to the people who went through it in one go... thats why the valima was wrapped up in one sentence! Thanks for yes reminding of the jewelry - the kaali poat and the distinctive sat larra. The meano songs ofcourse are a must esp the raat kay bara bajay chorus. The one thing ofcourse that i shouldve mentioned was the salaam! My father was a gentle man with a booming voice and the only time I remember him actually getting angry on me and raising his voice a few more decibles was when he said: ``Mundi pait mein daalo!`` . Never seen a more distinctive salaam/adaab.

Just wanted to add to my post: Apart from the persian poetry and Islamic nikah in Hyderabadi weddings, everything else from the milk rasm, haldi, chiksa, ,cocunuts, stuffing faces with mithai, to the joint sajda have got native Andhra Pradesh Hindu roots. Its just amazing to see an amalgamation of multiple cultures and histories in one wedding ceremony. I`m sure this applies to other ethnicity muslim weddings in Pakistan and India. And before I forget Saris are sexy.

Regards.

quite amusing.
the hyd.weddings i attended had rituals after rituals, but performed in a sleep walking fashion - devoid of any enthusiasm! well one had to yawn thru them for the sake of food - worth looking forward to.
by the way u forgot joota churai.

Wonderful article Shehla, brought back memories of people and times gone by :)

Having Hyderabadi parentage myself I was a bit surprised to find out that I didn`t know all of the rasms mentioned in the article. Some rasms that occur in my family were not mentioned either. One of the flaky rasms that we have is when the Larka and Larki wash each others feet with milk after they get home from the shaadi. Then they do a joint namaaz as in they face towards mecca and have their arms across each others shoulders and do a sajda. Someone mentioned the dholkis and music... Maybe its everyone, but I remember in Hyderabadi weddings the women/girls go out of there way to find out about the other family as in the larka/larkis uncles, aunts etc and create and sing these semi-mean, smartass lyrics putting each other down. Alot of fun. Then theres the nazr uttarna scene. When I was a kid I used to get to hang out in the zenana section as well. So I`ve witnessed a couple of Qabool hais from dulhans when the moulvi comes to ask whether she agrees to the wedding. The Larki is told to not say Qabool hai immediately but to wait and let the moulvi ask a couple of times... so that she doesn`t seem too eager. The moulvi goes through this long-winded question everytime: `sehba bint-e-rauf, blah blah blah manzoor hai`... and the girl is supposed to answer on the 3rd time. One cousin didn`t care and she said qabool hai right away, that was funny and the quickest nikah I`ve seen. Then there are the folks who no one knows or sees year round, but come shaadi time, they take center stage, as in literally center stage. They stand up impromptu after the nikaah or get on stage during the shaadi and start saying poetry. The biggest poetry theme during shia weddings revolves around wishing the bride and groom the same partnership that Hazrat Ali and Bibi Fatima shared. Then theres persian poetry which I never understood. Quite a few muslim Hyderabadis have persian and turkish heritage or were influenced by the language due to the royal classes affinity for things persian in Hyderabad.

Hyderabadi food does an all out assault on the taste buds albeit in a great way. Nargisi koftas, kachay gosht kee biryani, dam ka keema, paneer etc. is good. But I prefer the simpler fare, like Khattee daal (all my friends used to love the daal at my place), tamatar ka cut, khichri with dahi, keema, and paapar, phullee daal, mircheeon ka saalan. The really heavy duty stuff that I have a hard time with is Hyderabdi nihari which has goat paya and tongues. This nihari is cooked for over 10 hours.

Maybe the food results in Hyderabadis fascination with the digestive process (or is it just my family ?)

Hyderabadi terms are also funny to hear, like the hammam one. The mundane can sound humorous. There was a really funny skit on 50-50 about Hyderabadis. I really liked that show they poked fun at just about every accent, and ethnicity in Pakistan.

As generations of Hyderabadis go by in Pakistan, alot of the culture and language will get lost in the merging of so many different identities. That is only natural and is happening at a much larger level vis a vis the world. People will hang on to that what they hold dear or value and make a part of their lives.

One thing which struck me as odd in your article was that the larka and larki didn`t get to hang out and get to know each other much. Even my parents got to go to drive-in movies (which was the in-thing in Karachi in the 60s and 70s), albeit chaperoned, before they got married. But as I said earlier, I`m sure things vary family to family.

Adabarz.

A thousand years from now this piece could well be the prized find of a cultural anthropologist digging up Hadrabadi rasams as practiced in your time and area. A great piece. (After reading #23 and the response given to MIT #22, no punctuation suggestions from this reader) :)

Wouldn`t have believed at the beginning that I`d even bother to read such a lengthy piece (actually started reading it by accident and didn`t realize how long it was until I was already hooked and it was too late to quit). Brava... Will surely go back now and read your other writing.

...SR

Aray ye putti to acchha likhtee jee. Magar iss ko thori see tanqeed hona. Here’s what I feel are the key aspects of Hyderabadi weddings missing from her article:

a) Description, or even specific mention, of exquisite Hyderabadi jewelry (that cool stuff that hugs the neck can make even a clown look graceful); and

b) Hyderabadi wedding songs, some of which were written and composed by the great Amir Khusro, that help recreate and maintain the atmosphere of all that has been described.

All in all, it was good work. I just wish she had not mentioned the “khara dupatta” though. It can go a little hard on some pashas who find themselves cut off from these glorious traditions.

Farhan

Shehlah

thanks for your response. About khatti deccani dishes, I will have to add that it is not some but all the dishes that my neighborette used to send me were khatti, including the dishes made from meat and chicken. No doubt they were delicious but it was actually my friends, who were probably jealous because a deccani damsel was nice to an ogre like me and not to them, pointed out that I might grow breasts if I didn`t stop eating those khatti dishes. I dont know it happened for a fact or it was just the power of suggestion that I started feeling that I was growing breasts........so I asked my benevolent neighborette to stop sending me those khatti dishes and told her that I would settle for khoobani ka meetha........but alas the contemptuous and jealous world could not tolerate that and started telling me that I was gonna grow a humongous butt if I didn` stop eating so much sweet. I dont know it actually happened or it was just the power of suggestion that I started feeling that I could use my butt as a fulcrum and rest of my body as a see-saw pivoted on it while lying down. So I asked my neighborette to stop sending me meetha as well. Thus by closing the door to my stomach I closed her way to my heart as well unintentially. Why is this world so cruel and jealous? Why why why?

And what is ``smarties``. Is it a metaphor?

Shehla,

This is a well written article. Boy o Boy I would have died if I went through the same stuff as you. My wedding was free of most of these rasms except the dolki and mehndi. Feeewww... thand God I`m NOT Hyderabadi.

Vampires?