An account of a Grand wedding in Sindh!
Rajesh Kirpalani
Hello,
I
came accross a book "Indian Summer - A Memsahib in India and Sind" by April
Swayne-Thomas.
The following is an account of a lavish Sindhi Wedding in
Sindh in 1941!! She has written it in the form of a diary/letter with lots of
drawings. Does anyone know who the "Mukhi of Sind" was? It sounds like an
important person? What did he do?.
I often assumed that the fashion for lavish grand weddings
started after the Partition, but it seems it has its roots back
in Sindh!
I hope people enjoy this as much as I
did!
Cheers,
Rajesh
Kirpalani
London
------------->
Karachi, Sind November 1941
They say that this card will reach you on Christmas Day, and bring my greetings and love with it. It is difficult to imagine November at home as here the days are still hot and sunny and the garden is full of bright flowers, butterflies and singing birds. We are really very lucky still to be here.
Geoffrey and I have just been spending three hectic and gorgeous days in Hyderabad, Sind, where we used to live. We went to attend a large Hindu wedding, the eldest son of the 'Mukhi of Sind', and have been thrilled with every minute of it. We stayed with our host. All Indian houses seem to be vast affairs divided into self-contained flats, each with its own rooms, baths, showers etc., built around a small courtyard for the sons and their family as they marry. The one we were in could hold forty people. Patriarchal and keeping the money in the family! Our courtyard was the most charming little place, cooing pigeons above us, flowers and creepers in pots around the side and we sleep out in the centre of it at night under the intensely bright stars. The clear desert air makes them brilliant.
We met the family for meals. They had Sindi food of course, not too highly flavoured, so that we liked it very much. The very best goat was in the curry. They ate everything with their fingers though we were given forks and it was an amazing sight to see dainty fingers laden with jewels — two of our host's single diamond rings were half an inch across — dipping into the greasy curry. Silver bowls were brought, which I in my ignorance thought were for finger bowls but I was wrong. They drink from the silver bowls and so the old story is quite true, but the poor Shah, or whoever it is told about at Queen Victoria's dinner party, was only doing what he would in his own country!
After a day of garden parties and home festivities the Wedding day came. The procession through the famous Long Bazaar, which is hundreds of years old, is two and a half miles in length, and wide enough for one carriage and a cow, was about three-quarters of a mile long in itself. Geoffrey walked with the men while I was in a carriage drawn by two spanking chestnuts, silver collared and red and green feather plumes on their proud heads. Walking at our sides every few yards were men with great brightly coloured and painted lamps on their heads to light the way. When the gaslight started to grow dim they stopped and pumped it up with a tyre-pump and then rejoined the procession. Four bands were playing all the time, one in complete Highland uniform.
The ceremony at the Bride's House took ages but after the first half hour or so, when the bridegroom had had his feet washed in milk by his future mother-in-law and the bride had been fetched from an inner retreat and bride and groom were tied to each other by a crimson thread at the waist and had what looked like a muslin table-cloth tied around their waistline, our host took all of us who were in the front armchairs around the marriage dais to have drinks and cigarettes in another part of the house. The bride, by the way, was wearing the most lovely silver and chiffon sari, the edges deeply embroidered in pearls and diamenté. It was etiquette that she appeared weeping when led in by the groom but, as she is a modern educated and travelled girl, she just didn't raise a tear!
We only came back to the ceremony when it was nearly ended so that the boredom of Hindu weddings that people usually talk about was not ours. I had decided to wear my very best and scarcely worn satin and gold-thread gown I had from Harrods and a blue fluffy ostrich feather cape that is still holding together in spite of this climate. I was glad I did `over dress' a little, as everyone's saris were so gorgeous and I was the only European woman there. I hear today that someone was told that a `White English Rani was there'! As a souvenir they gave me a most lovely green gauze and gold-thread Benares sari and dressed me up in it after I had gone through the salt-tossing ceremony with the bride — that makes me one of the family; a nice gesture on their part. Some of the men wore European clothes and some Sindi costume, the high-necked white long coats fastened with jewelled buttons. Lots of the women, the older ones particularly, wore nose-rings, some so heavy that they bring a small strand of hair from their forehead to help hold up the ring.
Hyderabad at present is under martial law on account of the Hurs or armed bandits but it didn't seem to affect the wedding at all except that G. was obliged to carry a loaded pistol in his pocket all the time `as Army regulations'.
