Rituals before Marriage Part I

1. Formalisation of Alliance

In a traditional Indian Marriage, lots of rituals take place before the boy and the girl formally get married. As I had opted for an Arranged Marriage it was but obvious that my marriage too would go through the same formal process.

The search begins when an advertisement is placed in the national newspapers that Mr. so and so is looking for a suitable girl. In response to the advertisement quite a lot of proposal's are recieved by the groom's family. So in response to my advertisemnt we recived about 100 proposals. Neerajakshi's was the last one to arrive. This is how she looked in the customary "shaadi photograph" . At that time Neeraja was doing her doctorate in Extensions Education from her university.

My father and Mother went to visit Neerajakshi at her residence at Pantnagar. This is a sort of custom that in arranged marriage's the to be in-laws have a look-see at the girl to decide as to whether the girl would make a worthy bride. In my humble opinion this practise is bad but due to the huge song and dance attached to marriage it inevitibly takes place.

It was obvious that my parents thought that Neerajakshi and I would make a good husband and wife and they gave consent to the alliance. Once the formal go-ahead was given; the occasion was solemnised. My (to be) Mother-in-Law can be seen in the two photographs applying the auspicious Tika on to my parents forehead.

Here are some more snaps of the happy day at Pantnagar when the alliance was formalised. In the picture on the left you can see My mother (right), Neerajakshi and Neerajakshi's Mother (lef). It is difficult to explain the emotions that go on in the boy and girl during this day. As Neerajakshi told me much later after marriage "Suddenly you stop being a girl..." Enigmatic but true.

On a single stroke a lot of equations are changed - both for the boy as well and the girl. On one hand, two families, hitherto unknown, are tied into a lifelong relationship. Two young people are suddenly faced with the idea of being "man and wife" and having father and mother in-laws akin to having own father and mother. On the picture on my right you have Neerajakshi's Father (left), Neerajakshi and my father.

This final photograph shows all the members of Neeraja's family. In the front are all the elders. I am sure that by now you have been able to identify my parents and Neeraja's parents. In the back row are my brother in laws. The one on the right is "Amit Vikram" - Neeraja's Elder Brother and the one on the left is "Avijit" - Neeraja's younger brother. Now if all the five (5) members of the family are present in the photograph then the question arises as to "who took the photographs?". Before you jump to the obvious conclusion, let me inform you that I was down with Jaundice.

The above event took place on 23rd of May 2001

2. Variksha - Consent of the Groom

The next major activity in the case of arranged marriage is the cerimony of "Variksha" - literally meaning "Consent of the Groom". In this ritual, the bride's father and brother approach the groom family and formally take consent of the groom and the groom's family for the marriage. Now-a-Days, however, this custom has fallen into disuse due to lack of time both on the gir's family part and on the boy's family part. However it was felt by my parents that as this was the first marriage in the family (specially on the paternal side) it should be done.

To fulfil the ceremony, Neeraja's Father along with her Brother travelled to our native place Baharaich in Uttar Pradesh. My grandfather was already residing at Baharaich. My father and uncle (father's younger brother) travelled from Calcutta and Patiala respectively to attend the ceremony. In the first photograph you can see Neeraja's father in law putting the tilak on my grandfather's forehead.

In the next few photographs you can see that the Tilak is also being applied onto the forehead of my father and my uncle. This signifies the formalisation of marriage between two families and traditionally, after Variksha, no marriage alliance could be broken; for any reason what-so-ever.

In the following photograph you can see my grandfather recieving the traditional gifts of fruits and dry sweets from my father-in-law. The fruits and the dry sweets are distributed to all the members of the family. It acts as a formal proclamation of marriage to the Biradari - or the joint and extended family; as well as to the society.

Variksha took place on 22nd of July 2001

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