This season, no pomp and show at weddings

Sumayyah Qureshi
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, September 26

A two-storeyed house in one of the lanes of the Anchar locality in Srinagar sits quiet. Inside, a few men and women move about but without any hurry.

There is a wedding, but nothing suggests so. There are no decorative lights or relatives in garish outfits. No wedding songs waft in the air. The deluge of relatives is missing and no children scurry around.

The house is devoid of any wedding celebrations except for a few wazas (traditional cooks) who are preparing wazwan over firewood. The family said they had cut down on the number of lamb dishes to be served.

Since the clampdown in the Valley on August 5, weddings in Anchar have all been similar: quiet and low-key. The feast is no more a grand affair. The family has not even sent out any invitation cards and the guest list has also been truncated given the situation in the Valley.

Anchar has been in the limelight for being the epicentre of protests since the state was stripped of its special status. The family hasn’t been able to shop for the wedding as the locality remains cloistered, its lanes and bylanes dug up to stop security forces from moving in and most of its roads barricaded for the 52nd consecutive day on Wednesday.

The bride is dressed in an embellished pink ‘salwar kameez’. Only her hands decorated with henna imply that she is the bride. She has not been able to buy even her wedding dress. “I am going to my in-laws’ house in the dress I am wearing right now. I could not buy clothes and jewellery for myself,” said the bride, with the smile missing from her face.

“We couldn’t even invite our relatives to the wedding. I am scared if I send my sons out to buy anything for the wedding, the police will arrest them,” the bride’s mother said.

The family said the groom would arrive along with four persons around 4 pm, much early by the Kashmiri standards. In normal times, grooms usually arrive after 10 pm. “As the roads are barricaded, the bride’s brothers and cousins will go and receive the groom outside and then bring him to the house in another car, stationed on our side of the barricade,” said a member of the family.