Weddings say a lot about a society and the people tying the knot. While weddings can be occasions for the young couples to rebel and show their progressive stripes, they are also an opportunity for couples to live up their one day in life. To most, austerity seems like a lost opportunity. In a society that strongly preaches that you marry only once, and divorces and remarriages are grudgingly accepted, most tow the line down to the last ritual because you do it only once; there are a few who dare to deviate.
Last year, one such couple in Odisha got married by taking oath of the Constitution. They also organized a blood donation camp. Two activities that should not offend anyone but it did. While harsh reactions to such progressive acts are expected in every society, coming from Odisha, my home state and so soon after I came back from a family wedding makes it deeply personal.
Weddings in Odisha are not known for their lavishness. At least, not outside the state but then scale is a relative term. In a state where, as per the recent NITI AAYOG report, every third person lives below the poverty line, what is conventionally considered a non-lavish wedding can be financially ruinous too. The threat to mental and financial sanity, is real. What it does to girls and women and their rights is rarely discussed above whispers. There are many stories hidden under a seemingly peaceful exterior.
The problem lies in hard coded rituals that often differ from community to community and from region to region; in unspoken understanding about what each side is supposed to bring to the table; and in tradition and modernity not working at loggerheads but collaborating to make the situation worse. How? Let me explain.
The obvious and oldest of problematic ritual is dowry and associated gifts. The old dowry has now metamorphosed into parental gift to the new couple. The modern bride is not sent off with a truck trailing her with goods she has little control over, she shops for herself with demands made on parents to meet her aspired for class. While the bride is the agent that shops, she hardly has full agency. She meets the latest trends, her in-laws’ expectations and goods as insurance against future ridicule.
Firstly, we must talk about the nananda putuli. The groom’s family sends a list of all their relatives who has to be given a gift from the bride’s family. The groom’s sisters, ‘nanadas’, however,get a special mention in the gifting with a custom called the nananda putuli, a bag of gifts meant to seal a bond of affection. In reality, nothing sums up the tense and fraught relation that the bride shares with the women of the new family more than this suitcase. The putuli must include a long list of items that includes gold ornaments, clothes, accessories, extensive toiletries, often household items.
While Punjabi wedding are seen as a template for dance and fun filled weddings, Odia weddings can be the best examples of weddings that are all about logistics and negotiations around rituals. Just to give an example, there is a custom of baradhara where the bride’s brother has to travel to the groom’s home on the day of wedding to invite him to his own wedding. I was the baradhara in the wedding that I attended and it involved being on the road for close to nine hours. Having gotten used to conducting important meetings on video call, I was eager to debate the usefulness of such a ritual!
As a reprimand, I was told of a wedding in a nearby village where the wedding was called off because the baradhara never turned up. The ordeal began after I agreed. The baradhara has to dress up to match the groom and, it seemed, the bride even. Alta on feet, nail polish on fingernails, patterns made from sandalwood paste on the forehead. As the auspicious moment to depart came closer, there was frantic last moment discussions on whether a gold chain is mandatory or not. In this, a forty-year-old man with a mind of his own otherwise was completely helpless and followed all instructions with little or no protest. What chance to young ones still living under the thumb of their families stand!
I can go on and on about the drama that never ends. It is a field day for anyone who wants to create a rule of their own. During jai ragada, an old neighbour insisted that the coconut on earthen pot had to be green and not brown. Then there was a debate on whether the new pair of chappals that the groom wears to the mandap should be carried by the baradhara and given at his home or should it be offered later when he gets down from the car at the venue. Should the groom be fed the pakhala post wedding or not? The rituals might see innocuous but the stress of conforming to them is immense, and have the power to set the tone of the relationships for years to come.
It’s not that nothing about Odia weddings is changing. Like weddings across the country, Bollywood has made sure that without sangeet no wedding is considered complete. So, a DJ was called, a tent was set up on the roof and the bride and her friends danced late into the night, in a not-so-remote village of Odisha. While the fun and general loosening up is more than welcome, the problem is while more is being added nothing is being discarded. So, in effect, the wedding becomes a clumsy giant with a cemented rear foot stuck in the rituals and a front foot of plastic dangling in the air.
Why do we need to take a critical look at these rituals and traditions? Rituals, often perceived as harmless, create a hierarchy of thoughts, actions and relations, thus enabling patriarchal power structure. They ensure that your worldview remains the same, generation after generation and women especially suffer from this status quo. Weddings typically set the tone for a woman’s place in this hierarchy. In a state like Odisha, this is especially harmful. Odisha has been ranked as the second-worst state in the country in gender-based violence. As per 2018 NCRB data, Odisha reported the highest cases of assault against women in India. Showing the state of marriages, 35.2 per cent women in the state faced spousal violence as per The National Family Health Survey.
This sad state of affairs is despite the efforts of the government. From the first gender-based budget to programs in partnership with development agencies to setting up fast track courts for rape cases, the government has launched numerous progressive programs. But government action can go only that far without social change, and in cases like this it should be led by the youth who are willing to come out from under the social sediment and challenges the century old norms.
Seen in this context, the Odia couple that got married over a constitution is nothing less than revolutionary. While respect to the nation’s Constitution should be seen as respect to its culture, the ties between rituals, culture and nationalism are complex and convoluted. While on one hand we are tying culture to nationalism, we are offended when the nation is placed above society. A society that feels unsafe once outside the web of rituals.
