Wedding Planner

Destination - Telegu Wedding

The marriage rituals amongst the Telegu Brahmins takes place, at the boy's and girl's houses, a couple of days prior to the main ceremony. The evening before the marriage neighbouring married women / suhasinis are invited for the perantum. The suhasinis are welcomed with an application of haldi / turmeric to their feet, chandan / sandalwood to their necks and gifts of soaked gram, coconut pieces and fruits. With these gifts symbolizing the fruits of marriage they invoke celestial blessings on the pair to be wed and leave at the end of the function.

A day prior to the wedding the rokali-rolu ceremony takes place. The couple is readied for the wedding day at their respective homes by their female relatives. Turmeric / haldi is ground in a wooden rokali-roku / wooden pestle and mortar, mixed with oil and besan / chickpea flour and applied to the bride and groom. After a bath they emerge in white clothes looking radiant as a result of their beautification ritual. They are now adorned with tilak and kajal (in the eyes and a dab on the cheek) to ward off evil eye. The couple are now ready and made beautiful for the big day.

WEDDING DAY

Finally the day everyone is awaiting excitement arrives with plenty of activity. At the groom's house he and his parents are busy with snaatakavratan comprising

Ganesh puja
Punya vachan / site purification

Havan / paying respects to the Fire Agni/ God

Groom's announcement that he is leaving the brahmacharya diskha / bachelor state for the grihasta diksha or married state. In taking this he also ensures that his family line or tree is continued.

He now dons his chappals / sandals to commence on a Kashi yatra / pilgrimage to Kashi / Varanasi / Benares, This is done now only for the sake of fun. The bride's brother meanwhile arrives, and convinces him to stay behind and carry out the vow he has taken to be grihasthi. He playfully knocks the groom's jaw thrice with jaggery / gur / molasses to the joyful fun-filled cries of "Give him a good sock on the jaw" from all the relatives. An exchange of gifts follows this ceremony.

Meanwhile at the bride's place the marriage invitation / edur sannaham ceremony takes place. The groom's relatives enter the bride's home or the mandap where the nuptials will be celebrated, where they are welcomed with rose water, tilak and chandan by the women folk. The pundit reads out the invitation card or lagna patrika. The bride's parents announce the marriage and invite the groom and his party to the marriage and give them presents of tamboulam or betel leaves and nut, bananas, jaggery-sweetened water and clothes. The groom's side responds by repeating the same procedure and then settles down in the room allotted to them. During this ritual the bride is not present.

The wedding rituals now start in earnest on either side. The bride and her parents perform the ankuraarpana with nine different grains wound with a thread and placed in a clay plate. This means that just as the grains spring up with a new life, so also will be the couple be blessed with children in their marriage. On the same lines invocations are made to Gauri, the first wed mother goddess, and then the panchpalika ceremony honoring Indra, Ganesha, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The ancestors, too, are not left out, and are invoked for their blessings. In the Gauri puja the bride is seated in a cane basket filled with paddy as a mark of respect for the womb and the children it will carry. The pravara / calling out of the gotra / clan of the bride up to the last three generations is performed.

While this ceremony of the bride is taking place, the groom performs Ganesh puja, punya vachan and kankanam ceremonies. In the kankanam ritual the pundit ties a mango leaf wound on a turmeric dyed thread around the groom's wrist. A similar kankanam is put around a brass post that will be used in the kanyadaan ceremony. At the end of the marriage ceremony all the kankanams are united.

The bride arrives at the mandap in a basket, but before a partitioning cloth is put by the pundit so that the couple do not see each other. The arrival in a basket goes back to the days of child marriage when the girl child was carried to her nuptials.

A kankanam each is tied around the wrists of the bride and her parents. The parents then wash the groom's feet and present the couple with white clothes signifying virginity. With the partitioning cloth between them, the couple stand and recite their vows promising to be together in life in line with the four dogmas of dharma/religion, artha/wealth, kama/passion and moksha/spiritual enlightenment.

The bride is now given away by her father in the kanyadaan / giving away ritual after which the pundit reads out the pravara / lineage of the couple for the last time. The partitioning cloth is removed. The bride and groom celebrate kanyadaan by anointing each other's forehead with a gur-jeera paste to signifying the bitter times of their life together. They now change into the white clothes presented to them earlier. The groom ties two mangalsutras, one each from the two sides of the family around the bride's neck with three knots. They pick up handfuls of turmeric coloured rice from two talaambralus / basins and empty over each other's heads as a blessing for a prosperous future. The sadasyani starts as the bride prepares a mock meal be cooking a little rice to show that household life has started. Simultaneously, the bride's brother performs the laja hom - the offering of puffed rice to the Fire God or Agni.

The couple now take the customary seven steps / saptapadi together. With each step the bride rubs off seven successive mounds of rice as they pray for the seven gifts of food, strength, wealth, cattle, children, happiness and devotion. They now perform the agni pradakshina / circling of the fire three times and are declared man and wife. The bride is welcomed into the groom's house by his putting a toe ring on her toes and tying a string of black beads to ward off the evil eye. Thread.

He then shows her the imaginary star Arundhati. According to legend Arundhati with her powers turned the powerful Gods Vishnu, Brahma and Maheshwara into babies. He, thus reminds his bride of the power of a woman

The rituals come to an end with the emotional appahenthalu. Her parents dip her hands into cow's milk and place them into the groom's hands. They aski him to take over his new responsibilities in accordance with the age-old laws of marriage for it is a life-long companionship of two people having a magic of its own even in this day and time.

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Destination - Telegu Wedding

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