By TUSHA MITTAL
A few South Asian and interracial couples prefer the priest explaining
the meaning of rituals during a traditional wedding. Priests, like Sanjay
Saxena, above, right, translate the mantras for the benefit of the guests
and the couple. Photo courtesy of SANJAY SAXENA
Anand Kolipakkam says he understood almost all the rituals performed
during his wedding in Hyderabad, nearly two years ago.
“The priest took the time to tell us what he was saying,” Kolipakkam
from Lowell, Mass., says, adding that he was lucky his parents chose such
a priest. But even if the priest hadn’t paused for explanations, and neither
the bride nor the groom had requested any, Kolipakkam says he would still
like all the recitations authentically and traditionally performed.
“I would not want to have it (wedding ceremony) simplified,
I want him to recite all the mantras possible,” Kolipakkam says. “Even
if I don’t understand them, at least he’s reciting the right things.”
When it comes to South Asian weddings, though, the word traditional
can mean many things — from adhering to strict religious rituals, to the
number of functions performed, the length of the ceremony, or the number
of guests invited, and even whether the ceremony is held in the United
States or in South Asia.
Which traditions couples choose to incorporate and what importance
religious rituals hold are some questions that arise with first and second
generation immigrants residing in the United States. Perceptions of what
is authentic and essential differ. While some couples feel the need to
understand the implications of their wedding rituals, for others the act
of fulfilling the prescribed rituals is authenticity enough.
“It depends upon the individual,” Kolipakkam says. “Some are
curious and want to perform the traditional Indian way, and some want to
get it over within 10 minutes.”
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‘It depends upon the individual. Some are curious and
want to perform the traditional Indian way, and some want to get it over
within 10 minutes.’
Anand Kolipakkam
Lowell, Mass.
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According to Geeta Singhani, a wedding planner based in Needham, Mass.,
most of the couples she has helped get married prefer to adhere to all
the traditions even while celebrating the ceremony locally.
“Being in the United States, if they wanted to get out of the
traditions, they could have,” Singhani says. “But they want to follow it,
they do it literally how marriages happen back home.”
Singhani describes in particular the marriage of clients Penny,
a Greek bride and Divi, a Punjabi groom. “They chose to do it the traditional
way with the horse, the barat (groom procession), the greet and meet, the
mehendi (henna) party, and the true Vedic rituals,” Singhani says. “Exactly
whatever happens in Punjabi weddings there (in India).”
But unlike most ceremonies in India, Singhani describes how
the priest presiding over the rituals was speaking in Sanskrit and then
translating to English. “The idea is that they wanted to understand why
we do this, what is the reason behind the rituals,” Singhani says. “And
even the audience was sitting there trying to understand so everyone could
know what was happening.”
Sanjay Saxena, a priest based in Lexington, Mass., who performs
Vedic ceremonies for couples, agrees. “Here people are more curious because
the guests are not Indian,” Saxena says. “They want the guests to understand.”
That is perhaps the most pronounced difference between wedding
ceremonies in the United States and ones in South Asia.
Saxena describes how couples ask for an English copy of the
vows before hand so they can understand what is going on. “Whoever wants
more detailed discussion, I send it as preliminary reading material, as
a heads up of what is expected,” he says. Saxena also says he remembers
guests weeping during the translation of vows. “It becomes an emotional
and heartfelt ceremony,” Saxena says. “I heard guests weeping listening
to commentary and some even ask for a copy of the vows.”
What makes the vows appealing, according to Saxena, is the difference
in collectivistic Hindu philosophy as opposed to an individualistic American
culture.
However, things tend to be more mechanical in India, Saxena
says.
“In India, guests don’t care and know what is going on,” he
says. “Here people who come are interested in learning about it.”
Singhani agrees. “In India everything is so available,
you miss out on the whole thing,” Singhani says. “Here people are looking
forward to knowing more, are seeking more.”
But for a young couple from Boston, Dheeraj and Rishtee Badra,
curiosity is what led them to have their wedding in India. Dheeraj, who
grew up in Philadelphia, came here from Delhi when he was nine, while Rishtee,
who grew up in Michigan, came here from Bihar when she was four.
Rishtee Badra says she remembers her sisters’ wedding in the
United States, where all six days of functions were condensed into three
hours. “We’ve seen how quickly the weddings wrap up here,” Rishtee says.
“It didn’t seem authentic and neither of us was excited about doing a reception
in the morning and the ceremony at night, all in one day.”
The grand celebrations in New Delhi though, left both
husband and wife surprised. “We didn’t realize that [at] each function
that we had, there would be 200 to 300 people,” Rishtee says. “It turned
into a bigger deal than we expected. Everything was on a grander scale
in India, we didn’t realize it would be so lavish.”
For Dheeraj, though, where the ceremony took place and how it
was conducted didn’t really matter. “Once I realized I want to marry Rishtee
I let my parents decide the rest,” he says. “Once I picked a person, more
or less it was all formality.”
And that perhaps extends to the rituals too.
“To the best of our knowledge, it was a Bihari pandit and a
Bihari wedding, just like my parents’ wedding,” Rishtee says. “The ceremony
was long, from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. The pandit (priest) was hired from a small
village where my grandmother was from.”
And did the couple understand what the pandit was saying? Did
they want to?
“He couldn’t translate word by word or else it would take six
hours,” Rishtee says. “But he took the effort of explaining some important
paragraphs in Hindi, which was nice. He was accommodating, he would have
translated as much as we wanted him too.”
For Dheeraj, this is where intellectual and practical differ.
“From an intellectual standpoint it was interesting to learn how weddings
are conducted in my culture, but from a practical standpoint, it didn’t
matter. To me none of them were necessary, I would have been happy without
it.”
For Rishtee, though, understanding the implications of some
basic rituals, the pheras (circling a fire) and kanyadan (giving away the
bride) for instance, was important. She equates the remaining Sanskrit
chants to the reading of psalms at a Christian wedding.
“It’s more ritualistic, a lot of things are just dogmatic, just
maintaining tradition,” she says, emphasizing that one does not need to
understand everything being said to appreciate it. “I wouldn’t have been
happy if the entire ceremony would have been in English, it loses its integrity
if it’s not done in the original medium.”
Integrity is also lost, says priest Saxena, when people in the
United States request him to shorten the ceremony. “My ceremony takes 90
minutes, from the time they (the couple) are seated to the time they are
let go,” Saxena says. “Sometimes they ask you to do it in 60 minutes, and
I say, ‘Absolutely not.’ It is a sacred ceremony, it can’t be rushed through.”
Meanwhile, priest Krishna Bhatta from Ashland, Mass., offers
his clients the option of a 90-minute ceremony and a 3-hour ceremony. “The
three hour one is a very detailed ceremony,” he says. “It is for people
without urgency, for the sake of religion or for the sake of their parents,
it is for those who don’t want to hurry.”
For Erja Sarfraz of Cambridge, Mass., though, it’s not about
time limit but about incorporating all the elements one loves. For instance,
she describes her wedding cake. “It was gorgeous, with three layers
and real flowers,” she says. “It was strawberries and cream, one layer
was chocolate and one was vanilla.”
Though a wedding cake is traditionally part of a Christian wedding,
Sarfraz says she was excited to be able to incorporate that in her Muslim
wedding in the United States.
“I think people just get tuned to the culture they live in,
it (the cake) doesn’t even stand out, it blends in,” says Sarfraz, who
was born and raised in Pakistan and came to Boston for her undergraduate
studies. “Every culture has a wedding style and I got some ideas from living
here,” she says.
Ideas that she likes to blend in with her own tradition, without
replacing them.
“I enjoy and love my culture too much,” she says. “People back
home get sick of the same traditional things all the time, while people
here cherish it.”
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