Wedding season in Valley turns silent, subdued

Rifat Mohidin

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 26

Sakeena, 27, was getting married on August 24. The date for the wedding had been fixed in May this year.

Sakeena was excited like any bride-to-be. Though the celebrations were scheduled for August 24 and 25, the preparations at home had started more than a month ago.

However, nothing went as planned. When the big day finally came, even the neighbours didn’t know it was her wedding. No songs were sung, there were no celebrations, no decorations and the excitement was also missing.

It was a silent wedding as Srinagar’s uptown locality, where Sakeena’s parental home is located, remained under curfew.

On her wedding, no tradition was followed. Everything was done in an austere way.

In the Kashmir valley, ‘ruskhsati’ (bidding adieu to the bride) is usually done in the middle of the night as women sing folk songs but Sakeena had to leave to her in-laws’ home in old Srinagar at 4 pm so that both bride and groom could have a safe passage in curfew.

“Even delaying the marriage would not have been a good idea. You never know how long the unrest is going to continue. Our only worry was that both bride and groom should reach their home safely,” says Sakeena’s sister.

“As markets remain shut, we used to wait for the deal hours in the evening but then the night curfew was put in place. Getting stuff for the wedding was difficult,” she said.

The weddings in the Valley are incomplete without ‘wazwan’ —- a multi-course meal in Kashmiri cuisine, the preparation of which is considered an art.

Almost all dishes are meat-based using lamb or chicken. However, this wedding season wazwan made little or no appearance.

“My daughter’s ‘nikkah’ is scheduled for next week, but we have not even been able to buy necessary items for the simple wedding. We hope the market opens during evening so that we can do some shopping,” says Nazir Ahmad from south Kashmir.

The wedding season in Kashmir was supposed to take off after the Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations on July 6 and 7, however, the unrest following the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani forced people to cancel weddings or perform them in a simple way.

For the families which had been preparing for weddings since the start of the year, the celebrations never began.

The weddings in turn became a worry for people in the curfew-bound Valley. There were no lavish celebrations, no invitations were sent and no wedding songs filled the air.

The unrest has paved the way for simple weddings regardless of the social status of the family.

People make sure not to hold the weddings on Fridays due the restrictions and curfew in place to prevent protests.

‘Wazas’ (cooks), who prepare the elaborate ‘wazwan’ at the weddings, said their orders had been cancelled after July 9, hitting their business badly.

Around 90 per cent of the marriage functions have been cancelled and people are quietly solemnising marriages with simplicity, sans any wazwan.

“We were waiting for this part of the year but the situation had something else in store for everyone. It has also affected the mutton trade as mutton is also not available. People are having simple ceremonies,” said Ghulam Muhammad, a waza.

With no end in sight to the 49-day-long curfew, locals say marriages will continue to be a simple and silent affair till everything returns to normal.