1 post tagged “mehendhi”

If you enjoy reading this, you can send your thanks on to RPM for the gentle nudge to pen it.

Hindu weddings are HUGE, filled with colour, people everywhere, unmatched excitement and multiple events. While I have no problem speaking in front of large crowds and have done so on numerous occassions, I tend to lean towards small and intimate when it comes to expressing my personal emotions, or displaying my life for others. Therefore I was quite anxious about just how big this wedding was going to turn out to be. To my pleasure, with only 3 weeks to plan it, we managed about 200 people, and only 3 major events.

Each of the three events required a special, tailor made outfit... absolutely beautiful stuff. The first event was a "Thread Ceremony" for Aju - this symbolizes his commitment to his faith and the fact that he is a man. There is a pooja, which to Christians, is similiar to a blessing. Aju was given a thread that has been soaked in tumeric and he had to wear it next to his skin, until the end of the wedding. This ceremony seemed to be very special to his family, the look of joy and satisfaction on his mom's face is beyond words. At the end of this ceremony the Maharaj (Priest) performed a Ganesha pooja for first Aju and then for me. This was very moving - a Ganesha pooja is to invoke that God's blessing upon you before your wedding in this case.

Following this pooja, was a Mehendhi party. This is where any and all of the women invited to the wedding get together to dance, listen to music and have their hands decorated with henna tattoos.

The idea behind this tattooing as it was explained to me was to make the women more ornate, beyond the jewellry that they wore down to their skin. It's a beautiful art, but it's quite time consuming for the bride... 2 hours just to do my arms. About 45 minutes to do my feet. With so many people in the house - about 50 women - I spent a fair bit of time upstairs in our bedroom trying to cool off. One thing I have not been able to overcome in India is the heat... it really zaps me.

Later that evening, there was another pooja where Aju's clothes were ripped off of him... it was quite funny, especially because he wore jeans and a thick shirt - people really struggled. I think that this was to tear away his old "self" and prepare him for his new "self" as a married man. We were also told that from this point on until after the wedding we were representative of Gods ourselves, and thus able to grant special favours and requests for people. A couple of people really did ask us for blessings... one woman, very sweet lady, asked if I would bless her daughter so that she would get married soon herself as she was getting on in age (about 26).

The wedding.... part two to come. Coronation Street just started. :)