Sambhandha - The pleasent bonding.

I got my first push into the bride searching during this weekend. It was my cousin’s marriage, the first marriage that I attended from the beginning till the end. And there were lot rituals that I had no idea about. I don’t have an opinion about the significance of the rituals, but it’s all a lot of fun.

Here are some:

1. Sodu Munji/Kashi Yatra: The groom leaves for kashi not willing to get married. He wants to enter sanyasa directly. Then the father in law goes to him and calls him back to get married to his daughter.

2. The girls and the guy are separated by a panji (towel like cloth) with swastik mark on it. Both the guy and the girl are supposed to stare into the swastik for as long the matras are on. When the panji is lifted, the bride and the groom are supposed to put akshata on each other. Who succeeds in showering the akshata is supposed to dominate the married life.

3. The bride’s uncle (mama) has to carry the bride to the bride’s chair ( hase mane). He has to carry her in his arms and hand her over to the groom.

4. During the varamala session, the mama and the brother of the bride are to lift the bride so that the groom cannot put the varamala. This is again symbolic of how submissive the bride is going to be.

5. When the bride enters the new house (griha pravesh) she sings a series of 2 liners describing her love to her husband. These are called “ogatu haakodu” ( ogatu = puzzle)

6. The bride’s mother is supposed to sit on a three legged stool. The stool is called chowklani. I don’t know why this is done.

There are more, but thts all I can think of for now.

And now to the push part. I was shown to 3 middle aged ladies and was told later that they were the girl parents and they wished to see me. Shouldn’t the girl be interested in seeing me? What am I going to do by talking to the girl’s mom? To this my aunt said – ‘The girl will look like her mom when she is fifty. So look at how you want your wife to look when she is fifty’. Nice way to look at things. Very objective. This way I don’t have to think about how fat my wife is going to be, or whether she is going to have a double chin.. I know she is going to be as fat as her mom!! Phew! That makes the search much simpler.

There is a typical way in which the girl’s mom would talk to you. You can see it in their eyes. They would have an image of their daughter in their head. They see you, take your snap and put it next to their daughter, in their head. ‘Hmm.. looks good’ and they smile. You know they like you. Else they would make conversation with your mom and completely ignore your presence. You know you are rejected!

After I met with these 3 ladies, every lady who came to me to talk to me, familiar or unfamiliar, would be looked at with suspicion. “Does she have a daughter?”, “ Would she be beautiful? This lady is. So if she is not beautiful now, she would grow up to look beautiful just like her mom!”, “What do I say? I know I should not talk about her sexy daughter, and she is bent upon knowing how my onsite trips were and how long I was there. Should I answer? Has mom sent her to me?” All I did was smile for most questions and answer the absolutely necessary ones.

And these only make you think about marriage or rather the question to you is – why not marriage? Your family has all the reasoning and you fall back on only one thing – I don’t feel like. That is not even a reason according to them!!

So I am slowly being pushed into the whirlpool. But I am safe till next December, when my other cousin is getting married. The drama is going to be more intense then.

Btw, relationship is called sambandha. It means that it is a bonding that cannot be broken, but is a bond that is a pleasent one. And that is why it is called Sam-Bandha. This was what RSS head for south karnataka told us. :)

More later.