Wedding Bells

May22 revision

 

 

 

 

Wedding Bells

 

 

 

Some days before newsreports had appeared of the disturbances at the Hindu temple in the Southern Indian state of Kerala. A recent ruling of the Indian Supreme Court had overturned the prohibition against menstruating women entering the famous Sabarimala Temple.

         Hard-line traditionalists were resisting the decree, numbers of local women among them. A stand-off had resulted, threats of violence one side and vows to persist the other.

         In neighbouring Tamil Nadu the position of conservatives and reformers would be much the same. The Muslims too had a problem with menstruating women attending prayers at the mosque. 

         There would be no easy resolution here.

         Preparing for attendance at the wedding of the Komala Vilas cashier’s daughter, the news had drawn attention.

 

 

Four or five months before when the mother of the bride, the Komala Auntie, had begun with arrangements a consultation with an astrologer was mentioned. In fact it emerged that before the wedding could be planned the astrologer’s deliberations were crucial. 

         There was one bejewelled and marked old man always resplendent in finest starched dress who regularly lunched at the restaurant. Clearly some kind of holy man, it came as a surprise when it turned out that the chap was in fact a professional astrologer.

         In the Indian sectors in Malaysia the pavement fortune-tellers often consulted what appeared to be astrological charts, spread on the ground in front of the customer. The man at KV had clearly found a much better paying clientele; kept an office perhaps, or else visited and conducted business at the temples.

         Whenever this dignified old man took his lunch at Komala V. the waiters, customers and senior staff granted him particular attention. Whether the astrologer was charged for meals was unclear.

 

 

In the surveys of the charts might a prospective Hindu bride’s menstrual cycle be factored into calculations for the most auspicious date for a wedding? 

         Even in the case of a professional young woman in Singapore, in this instance marrying a Westerner? A Brisbane Queenslander.

         Numerous questions that arose in the long lead-up could not really be put. Certainly not to the bride’s mother.
         Though the prospect of a Hindu wedding did appeal, there was hesitation about accepting the invitation. Had the KVcashier Auntie not given a number of reminders, almost certainly there would have been an avoidance. This lovely woman could not be denied. Having a fellow Australian in attendance from her side might have been thought welcome too for the new son-in-law.

         For some strange reason the wedding was due to commence at 7: 30AM. Unless it was something more mundane, possibly it was the astrologer’s doing again.

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All easy enough in the bus from Geylang Serai, about 25 minutes and deposited on the doorstep of Sri Mariamman in Chinatown. 

         The Chinese bus driver didn’t know the temple by name, but there were two just there off South Bridge Road. It would be one or the other, the man assured. 

         Bells from the morning prayer had immediately indicated the way. The timing was perfect, not yet the half hour. 

         At the entry there were three or four dozen slippers of worshippers who had arrived earlier still.
         Inside the doors it took some while to realise this particular place was not the site for the wedding proper. Here the regular morning prayers were taking place; the wedding  would be held up in the adjacent hall on the left. One of the older worshippers indicated the stairs.

         There had been no sign of the cashier Aunt nor any other familiar face down by the altar. 

         A bugger too not having anticipated the removal of the hat; a old man obliged with that advice.

         While waiting for familiar faces to appear the morning prayer had been interesting to observe. It had not been seen before. Up in the inner sanctum the worshipping of the lingam was familiar from earlier temple visits. The fast-paced circuit in front, however, had not been seen previously. There was almost the look of a race about it, and one or two Chinese participating with what looked a competitive spirit. 

         Four or five years ago the Tamil yoga teacher Ranie had said the Chinese often prayed in Hindu temples, for luck in the lotteries. Something more seemed to be involved in this case.

 

 

 

Upstairs the Queensland groom’s party were waiting to greet the guests on entry, a freckled and ginger-haired dozen all in dhotis and saris. Inevitably there was a sense of fancy dress and at the introductions a joke needed to be restrained.

         At the front of the room the priest was busy with his preparations, the easily identified groom hot-footing around the raised platform. 

         A pair of musicians, drummer and horn player, sat up front on the floor against the wall. At what seemed some irrelevant point, these two abruptly started playing and kept up for the duration pretty much. One of the pair later inserted a bell that could not be sighted.

         The Tamil mother-in-law, the KV cashier Auntie, had been difficult to identify from ten metres off in her colourful clothes and beneath her make-up and heavy kohl liner. 

         In some conversation with the priest, which may have been part of official proceedings, the Auntie’s head loll was visible from behind.

         The take-away lady from the KV kitchen was similarly spectacular and similarly unrecognisable in her attire. 

         Whenever the KV owner visited the restaurant she was always dressed in that elaborate fashion. This woman arrived an hour late, but still in time to perform her role blessing the bride. It turned out the woman had overslept after news her younger daughter had just given birth in the States.

 

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The blessing of the bride was the highlight of the ceremony. 

         Eventually the young woman entered, took her place on the floor up front before the settee and soon one woman after another began attending her in brief turns. 

         First came the mother passing two or three clay vessels around her daughter, standing on the girl’s right starting at the near shoulder, behind to the other and then around in front, where both knees were touched by the bowls and trays. 

         After the mother it must have been the aunts come out from Chennai, two younger women who were in their own elaborate costumes—not quite as outstanding as those worn by the Singaporean contingent. During the acquaintance at KV the cashier Aunt had returned to her birthplace two or three times for the weddings of nieces and nephews. Here her sisters were returning the favour, circling the young bride with the vessels in preparation for the journey before her. 

         The young woman bore up smilingly under the attention; aunts and mother the same on their side. 

         A bottle-brush moustachioed man standing to the side off the platform against the wall could only have been the father of the bride. None of the audience looked out front as keenly, though the man seemed to have nothing to do with formal proceedings. Certainly there was none of the Western giving away of the bride.

 

 

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Bride and groom had been working and living in Myanmar the last couple of years. The Australian connection had troubled the KV Aunt from the outset with the distance and likelihood of ongoing separation. Yet there were no tears, no obvious emotion, neither of happiness or foreboding. Not all mothers across the globe cried at their daughters’ weddings.

         After the two aunts from Chennai had completed their blessing it was the turn of the KV owner, clearly a good friend of the cashier. The pair often sat together, both behind the register and at the tables over lunch. That the owner was a good sort had been proved over the years with her kindness and consideration for her workers, mostly poor fellow Tamils from the homeland, and sometimes Muslims among them. 

         During the preparation of the bride with what looked like the sprinkling of turmeric, among other dressings, it had been the groom’s sister assuming the position beside her on the floor. 

         The two women were being formally confirmed, while the groom’s mother, who was also in attendance, was left out of proceedings. No doubt a Hindu mother-in-law came into her own in the time ahead; that figure always featured prominently in the annals and in the Bollywood movies. (The father of the groom had not appeared.)

         Fertility rites were prominent: with the touches on the bride’s knees there also came various fruits on trays, young coconuts and other bounty.

         The pair of new brothers-in-laws took a turn on the platform together later, the bride’s brother grasping the other by the wrist in something that looked like strong-arming as they first began their move up the aisle. 

         The blessing of this pair seemed less consequential, perhaps understandably.

         Bride and groom would likely end on the settee together in the last half hour, showered with flowers or the like. Then photographs of family and friends on the stage. 

         The Malays sat their brides and grooms on thrones before the guests, kings and queens for a day, they said, the floor before them carpeted with money.

        Taking the lead from the quiet Tamil waiter who had briefly attended, in the end an envelope was improvised and a couple of tens inserted as an offering before departure. 

        The waiter had left his envelope with a couple sitting in the row in front. 

         In preparation for the event the Sufi Zainuddin, who had attended a number of Hindu weddings in his time, had suggested a tenner was enough. 

         The last of the proceedings would be missed. It seemed best to withdraw. The ceremony was due to end at 9: 30 and the feast after that. 

         Weeks later the KV Aunt expressed her disappointment a number of times that no food had been taken at her daughter’s wedding. One lunchtime she had attempted to pay for the Komala meal by way of recompense.

 

 

 

 

 

NB. Reliable information that followed suggested the guess-work was correct: the menstrual cycle would indeed have factored in the astrologer’s calculations, along with date & time of birth. And the mother of the groom being a widow left no role for her in a Hindu ceremony.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                        Singapore 2011-20