"Thank you for marrying me again"

Our primary purpose for this ceremony was for the tying of the thali, the wedding necklace. In the Tamil culture (the Indian ethnic group to which most South African Indians belong), the tying of the thali is the single most important part of the marriage ritual. It is the most sacred symbol of marriage, so much so that if the bride becomes widowed, she must return to the temple to have another ceremony for the removal of the thali. It is meant as a symbol not only of the wearer’s status as a married woman, but, through its sacred power, to protect the wearer and her loved ones from harm. During the ceremony the thali and the flower garlands are offered for the blessings of the divine power.

The thali is actually five pieces of wrought gold tied by the priest onto a gold-coloured cord. It is custom-made, each family having its own design. The groom’s family has the thali made in their particular design. The first official symbol that his family supported our marriage is his mother taking her own thali to the goldsmith to have a copy of it made for me. Immediately prior to the ceremony, with the assistance of one of the aunties, the priest took the pieces of gold, threaded them onto the cord and knotted them into place. He then wrapped the thali around a coconut and set it aside.

When it is time to tie the thali, the priest takes it out and blesses it. The groom unwinds the cord from the coconut and the bride holds the coconut in both hands. The groom, facing west ties the first knot of the wedding necklace around the bride's neck. As one of the aunties bent down to hold the gold thali charm at the right position between my breasts (so the cord would not be tied too short), the priest turned on a CD player from which the loudest, most cacophonous music burst forth! It was a recording of a black long flute-like instrument intended to resound at a high pitch and crescendo to muffle all other sounds in the immediate area. The tying of the three knots is timed precisely to the most auspicious moment as determined by the astrologers and priests. The thali tied with the help of his aunt, Hubby then reached his right arm around my head to put a dot of kum kum, a vermillion saffron powder, on my forehead symbolizing that I am a married woman now. Another auntie, holds up a flame in a clay lamp symbolizing the divine witnessing the nuptial knot: the three knots represent the union of mind, spirit and body.

The priest took a piece of white cloth, about the size of a handkerchief, and placed rice and herbs in it, topped with the coconut. Hubby was then instructed to tie the corners of the cloth together, making a packet, which was then handed to me. I got to carry this coconut for the rest of the day, until we came to auntie’s house and I could put it down next to the god lamp.

You may have noticed the beautiful garlands we are both wearing. These are made by the “garland ladies” (the Indian community has ladies for everything…samoosa ladies, garland ladies, sweetmeat ladies…) the day before the ceremony, long garlands of carnations and baby’s breath that are worn and exchanged by the couple during the ceremony. The garlands are exchanged three times during the ceremony, symbolising a sweet and endless partnership and a life of hope and love to be shared. From the moment of this exchange, the bride becomes an equal partner in the discharge of duties (dharma).

Because the fire is such a significant part of the entire Hindu custom, the nuptial couple must pay reverence to it. Agni, the sacred fire, symbolizes light, warmth, power, eternal cosmic energy and purification. We take twigs of trees that have been dipped in ghee and feed them to the fire in the brazier. The fire acts as universal witness to the ceremony and conveys all that is happening to the Gods. Since the flames always travel upwards and never return, once the message of the wedding reaches the Gods, it is considered eternal.*

In the bigger, longer ceremonies, the couple take seven steps around fire, each step symbolising an aspect of married life: nourishment, moral support and strength, chastity, happiness in parenthood, commitment, cherishment., friendship, respect and love. Because we were already legally married, the priest has us take flame in a lamp and describe circles with the lamp, symbolising the walk around the fire.

The priest dispensed with the grindstone which the bride customarily puts her foot on. But he did not dispense with the placement of the silver toe rings on my feet. The toe rings symbolises that I shall be as strong and steadfast as the stone, with courage and faith in the face of adversity. In the Hindu culture, one does not wear gold on the feet as it is an insult to the goddess Laxshmi, goddess of wealth, to tread upon her sacred symbol, hence toe rings must be of silver. Hubby soon found himself kneeling at my feet, working those toe rings over my chubby little red-tipped toes. (When you know your feet are going to be in the wedding ceremony, a good pedi is de rigueur!

Finally, the priest takes back the turmeric wrist threads and the grass rings, and the guests come forward and shower flower petals on our heads. His mother first, as she is his only surviving parent, then his grandmother. “Showers of blessing” they smile at us, flower petals flying everywhere. “Showers of blessing!”

And so we are now officially married in the customs of his family and culture. In the back of his mother’s Mercedes, we are driven by his brother to the home of a maternal aunt and uncle, where the wedding feast is to take place. His grandmother has made the most wonderful vegetarian breyani…the whole meal must be vegetarian…and a dessert called “soji” that is made from, of all things, cream of wheat. “Wedding soji” is a subclass of soji. And my husband’s particular favourite.

But before we can go into the house and begin the feast, there are still rituals to be performed. An auntie stands at the entrance to the house holding a metal vessel with a mixture of water and herbs. She says a prayer and sprinkles the water on us, then lights a camphor cube and places it in the water where it burns…taking the blessings and prayers to the gods, and ward off evil spirits. “Step into the house on your right foot,” she warns us, so that our married life will begin “on the right foot.”

I place the wrapped coconut next to the god lamp until Hubby takes it outside and breaks it against a stone. Breaking the coconut symbolises the sacrifice of ego, the milk signifies love, the white meat is for purity, and the broken shell symbolises the end of selfishness. An auntie ties up the rice and herbs in the white cloth and instructs me to put it into my rice jar at home (and yes, I do have a rice jar), mix it with the rest of the rice in the jar, thereby ensuring that my rice jar will never be empty…there will always be food in the home.

We eat…truly a feast of fabulous proportions, with Hubby’s talented grandmother the chief chef…and afterwards retire to the “lounge,” South African for living room, but really more of a parlour for special occasions. Two dozen people cram into the room and the family reminisces until fatigue sets in and people begin to drift away from the gathering. I spend the time listening avidly as these people speak their minds on politics, now and then, family and the mundane events of daily living.

The last to leave, we climbed into our little rentaPolo and made our way back to the B&B. We were tired, ready for rest but, at a red light, he reached over and patted my right hand and gave me a serious smile.

“Thank you for marrying me again,” he said, and my heart melted.


http://www.tamilculturewaterloo.org/documents/tamil_culture/srilankan_wedding_rituals.pdf

Showers of blessing

So, it rained the whole time we were in Durban. It was a cooling rain, leaving the air fresh smelling. For a wedding weekend, it was ideal, as the heat was kept in abeyance and the breezes kept the humidity at bay. All weekend there were mentions of “showers of blessings” from my husband to his mother to the wedding guests. Everyone seemed pleased at the rain.




Durban is a hilly city…a San Franciscan would feel right at home there! So undulating is the landscape that a house on a flat plot of land is a rare…and costly…find. So I was not surprised when we went to visit my mother-in-law’s cousin and found her house perched precariously on the edge of a dizzyingly steep hill. That I had to scamper down that hill on a narrow, roughly-poured set of stairs, however, was a surprise.

Saturday morning saw us at Mum’s house, a suitcase containing my sari and other accoutrements in hand. She had made arrangements for the daughter of her cousin to do my hair, and flowers in the hair is a necessary part of the bride’s attire. The cousin’s daughter is a hair dresser, and the cousin is considered some kind of an expert at draping and tying wedding saris, so I was bundled off to be made presentable. After two stops for flowers, we were on our way to the hair dresser. What nobody told me was that the cousin worked out of her house!

And so I came to this little brick house clinging to the side of a hillside steep enough to make a mountain goat swoon, and I had to clamber down these rough stairs to the miniscule cement pad outside the door. Thank goodness the door opened into the room because if I had had to step off that little pad to allow the door to swing, I would surely have rolled down that hill like a cheese wheel in Gloucestershire! The inside of the little salon was far from glam, but she had all the necessary tools and equipment and four women were packed inside the tiny room! Clearly, the lack of glamour and upmarket cachet was no barrier to business success and I was soon to see why…this girl could do magic with hair!

I have cranky hair. It is fine, thin, aggressively straight, and abundant. I keep it cut in a graduated bob, the kind that is short in the back, but has long, chin-length sides. Think Charlize Theron in Aeon Flux, just blonde and without the pointy bits on the cheeks. Yes…like Posh Spice, but I had the haircut a full year before she stole it from me. Anyway, my challenge to this young lady was to find a way to give me an “up do” sufficient to anchor a bunch of flowers at the crown of my head…and I mean anchor. It was going to have to stay in place for better than 12 hours, with no slipping and sliding in hair so baby fine that bobby pins slide out of it…no mean task!

Well, to my absolute amazement, she succeeded! That night, exhausted and unable to get the pins out alone, I begged Hubby to help. “Good grief!” he exclaimed upon seeing the pins. “She’s built a whole superstructure in there!” And indeed she had! She had started by putting a baby ponytail at the crown of my head and then building a grid of pins…affixed to the pony tail elastic... to use as a platform to secure the flowers to. It was amazing! And effective! And damned difficult to undo!

Once she was done with my hair I hiked back up that narrow, uneven flight of stairs to the dooryard. The driveway from the road to the dooryard was so steep that hubby parked our little rent-a-Polo on the street for fear up being unable to get it up the driveway and into the road again! Inside the main house now, I was led to a room where I shucked my jeans and T-shirt and started climbing into my wedding finery. First the petticoat, or underskirt. This was gold-coloured cotton, red and gold being the traditional Hindu wedding colours. The skirt has a draw string waist which must be tied tightly and securely, for the success or failure of draping a sari depends on this petticoat and it’s snug fit.

Next the blouse, a short, midriff-baring scoop-necked top. Mine was of gold silk shantung, custom made for my full figure and bosom. A row of tiny, hidden hooks and eyes march up the front of this little scrap of a top, making the front closure look like a seam.

Now the sari. Starting at the plain end, a corner is tucked into the right side waistband of my petticoat and the six+ yards of fabric wrapped around me until it comes to the front again and overlaps the original tuck. The sari fabric is now yanked and pulled and twitched and adjusted until the proper length is achieved. Since I was getting married and that is done barefoot, the sari was adjusted for the flat sandals I was wearing. Eventually the length was properly adjusted and now it was time to pleat. Seven pleats of approximately 4 inches in depth were made over my left leg and tucked into the waistband of the petticoat. More tugging and twitching and adjusting, and finally the pallau was thrown over my shoulder.


Now, the pallau has to be draped and secured so it doesn’t keep falling down. Cousin took a single safety pin and secured the back of the pallau through my bra strap and blouse, and then began the job of draping the front of the sari so that I would not have it in my way during the ceremony. Finally satisfied, she took the decorative sari pin and secured the pallau to my left shoulder. I was dressed!

Now, the mad dash back to Mum’s…Hubby still hadn’t changed…and then on to the temple. We arrived late…“we wondered if the had bride run away!” one of the uncles quipped…but eventually we arrived at the tiny private temple, took our seats at the front of the assembled guests, and waited for the Brahmin (priest) to call us forward.

We kicked off our shoes and stood and, accompanied by the soft rains showering blessings upon us, stepped into the temple.

An Auspicious Day: Sweet Violet gets married

Rain is a good omen in the Hindu culture and so the rain that greeted us upon landing at Durban International was a good sign. My husband called it “showers of blessing” which, of course, dissipated my initial annoyance at their unanticipated appearance.

I am not a good flyer and the flight was a bit bumpy but otherwise uneventful. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the minutes pre-boarding. Neither Cape Town International nor Durban International have jetways which means that passengers have to hike out to the tarmac and up a set of stairs to board the plane. Well, the airport back in Silicon Valley has much the same set up, so I’m fairly accustomed to it except for one thing: here in South Africa, they park the planes waaaaaaay out in the boonies instead of nose up to the terminal building. To accommodate passengers, however, the local airports supply large busses…think diesel-powered subway car with seats only at the front and back, the rest of the car just poles and hang straps…to take the passengers from the boarding lounge to the aircraft. It was here that I ran into trouble.

At first I thought myself lucky to get one of the few seats on the bus but the young man seated to my right was so drenched in some kind of peppery-scented cologne that my eyes literally began to water. Before the bus actually got into gear and on its way, I was sneezing. And it went downhill from there. Two allergy pills, a complete shower, a shampoo and 24 hours later I was on the road to recovery, eyes still red and puffy and nose starting to dry up. Whatever it was that guy had on, particles of it apparently clung to my hair and clothing and continued to provoke an allergic reaction long after he had disappeared into the vast landscape that is Durban.

Thursday evening saw us at Mum’s house for a prayer dinner: prayers for the dead. It was a vegetarian affair, with offerings and prayers for those who have gone before us, inviting them to dinner and to the wedding. I concentrated on inviting his relatives, particularly his father, as mine would probably not be particularly pleased. My mother and grandparents were not terribly impressed with my sister’s marriage, and her African-American husband is Christian. Imagine their opinion on my marrying an Indian gentleman whose family is Hindu (or, in their vernacular, heathen)?

Friday was your basic “last minute errands” day. The rain continued off and on, always light and gentle, more showers of blessing washing away cares and difficulties. We shopped for last minute items and drove over to visit Mum, where I got my first look at my thali. I had never seen one before.

Several large green leaves lined a small silver-coloured plastic tray. On the leaves was an array of items, from a folded length of yellow-orange cord to a yellow string wrapped around a turmeric stick, a betel nut, and five pieces of wrought gold. Wrapped with a piece of cling-film to keep everything together, this small tray held the essential items to present to the Brahmin (priest), who would, with the assistance of a married auntie, string the pieces together on the cord and bless them. The thali already bore marks of kum kum, a powdered vermilion, have been blessed by the goldsmith after he created it.

The morning of our anniversary dawned with more showers of blessing. Not only was this an auspicious day to begin any venture, according to the priest, the gentle rains were also blessing us. This, in the customs of my husband’s culture, was fated to be a good marriage. I have to admit, this was the nicest weather I had ever experienced in Durban. Usually is it hot and humid and rain only exacerbates that. But this trip was temperate…warm enough to keep away any chill, but cool enough that Dear Hubby, who perspires at the merest hint of heat, got through the whole ceremony without needing to mop his brow! Truly, it was an auspicious day!

Tying the Thaali

Have you ever had a Madras plaid shirt? Madras plaids were very popular when I was a teen, and have come in and out of fashion ever since. They are light and cool and the colours tend to run together a bit when washed, which is part of their charm. They were a perfect addition to the Southern California beach lifestyle of my youth.



Madras…now called Chennai…is actually a city in the southern Indian state of Tamil Naidu. My husband’s nationality is South African, but his ethnic heritage is Indian…Tamil, to be precise. It may surprise you to know that more than a million people of Indian origin live in South Africa…Durban, in fact, is the largest settlement of Indian people in the world, outside India! And with that many Indian people living in the same community, many of the traditions of their homeland have remained intact.

Hubby and I were married nearly five years ago by a non-denominational minister in California. The thinking was this: the American government can be unpredictable about accepting such things as marriage certificates between an American and a foreigner if the marriage is performed outside the country. Furthermore, the US Immigration service might frown on a marriage between a 56 year-old American woman and a 31-year-old foreign man: they seem to think any foreigner marrying an American only has a “green card” in mind, and given the age difference, we decided to minimize the number of possible objections to the legitimacy of the marriage (foreign wedding) by getting married in the US. It’s rather moot, considering we live in South Africa, but if we ever want to return to the US and live as a married couple there, his ability to get a green card must be preserved.

The upside of getting married in California was that my friends and family could attend. The downside was that his friends and family could not…and the traditions of his culture could not be adhered to, either.

Well, our fifth anniversary is coming up in November and that is about to be rectified. His mother has consulted a Brahmin and the actual day of our anniversary has been pronounced an “auspicious day.” This is good, because one must perform important rituals on auspicious days, and the sentimentalist in me wants a ceremony officiating our marriage in his traditions to be on the same day as our marriage was performed in my traditions. So, on the eighth of November this year, we are going to the temple and we will participate in the “tying of the thaali.”

“Thaali” is a Tamil word and the thaali is the symbol of marriage in the Tamil (and many other) culture. The tying of the thaali is the most important ceremony in an Indian wedding, similar to our custom of exchanging rings. An Indian woman takes the thaali to be the most esteemed token of love offered to her by her husband.

Legend has it that the thaali was originally a tigers claw or tooth, and if you look at the thaali in the picture above, you can see the stylized tooth shape. The groom gifted his bride with this token of his bravery (apparently he was supposed to have killed the tiger himself, quite a feat in the days before hunting rifles!) and as a symbol that he was brave enough and strong enough to protect and provide for her.

Hindu married women, often wear a necklace with a gold pendant...In South India, the necklaces are often made from a colourful cord. The shape, size and number of gold pendant(s) used are rather dependant on the cultural background of the wearer.

To an Indian woman, this is rather like wearing the wedding band, it is a bit longer and heavier than the gold wedding band, but it serves the same purpose - an overt signal to all around, that the lady is spoken for.

The necklace is invariably given by the groom to the bride at a key stage during the wedding. It is his way of saying, “You are as precious as this gold to me” and his way of showing that he values her above all else.

It is called mangal sutra [in North India], because it represents “auspiciousness”. By wearing it, a woman announces that she is happy and fulfilled in her life, this is what makes her “auspicious”. The sutra represents the many strands of emotions, love, faith, trust, friendship etc that go into making up a relationship, especially one that is suppose to last a life time. It also represents the many relationships that bind them now, those of the two families that are now woven into one.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7830/mangalsutra.htm

In my husband’s family, the thaali is worn on a thick yellow cord, and it is kept beneath the clothing rather than displayed like a necklace or fashion accessory. It is also a custom made article…one cannot walk into an Indian jewellery store and say “Let me see your thaalis,” because it doesn’t work that way.

In my husband’s family the tradition is that a senior member of the family must order the thaali (I am guessing that this signifies acceptance/approval of the marriage by his elders). Each family has its own distinct thaali design, and apparently certain jewellers make thaalis for certain families and they know what the design is supposed to look like. Since we are already married, the whole Indian wedding thing can be dispensed with (to Hubby’s great relief), but I will still have to enter the temple barefoot and in a sari…Hubby has requested that I wear my wedding sari from our marriage in California. With a small number of family members present, the priest will direct him to tie the thaali around my neck and then give us his blessing. We will then be officially married in the eyes of the Hindu community.

Why is this important? Well, at least one of his relatives asks me “Do you have a thaali?” or “where’s your thaali” almost every time we visit. Although the thaali is worn inside the clothing, the thick yellow cord is visible, so if you aren’t wearing one, it is obvious. My husband respects the traditions of his family (and may be a bit intimidated by those formidable aunties of his!) and I would like to feel that we have honoured both his traditions and mine.

So, in November we are off to Durban for our anniversary and this year the gift will be one of tradition and great meaning.