Marriage the traditional way

I’ve always wanted to visit Bangalore. The garden city of India. The IT capital of the country and full of bright, young, motivated people who take pride in their city and their work.

So when Seema Shetty, the brains behind BiteRite, a company that caters food to the health conscious and has a special plan for those who are diabetic, invited me to her wedding in Bangalore, I couldn’t refuse.

A modern Indian woman by every standard, Seema studied at Boston University before returning to Abu Dhabi to start her own company. Yet she chose to marry a man her family approved of.

They had met early this year and, coming from a similar background of family values and respect for their community, decided to tie the knot.

So arriving in Bangalore to share her happiness and what is considered one of the most auspicious occasions in a woman’s life was an absolute delight.

It would also be my first insight into a traditional South Indian wedding. We started with, as in all Indian weddings, a lot of singing and dancing leading up to the day of the wedding.

Her father, Dr BR Shetty, the founder of the NMC group of hospitals and pharmacies, the gracious host, welcomed us all as if we were family.

He chose the back garden of his house in the city to host some of the ceremonies, including an evening of Sangeet, where the cousins and friends of Seema put up a variety of song and dance shows that told everyone of how the couple met.

The next morning, the women took over Dr Shetty’s garden again and had henna applied to their hands for the mehndi ceremony.

On the eve of the wedding, we witnessed the Muhurtham, a ceremony held at sunset.

Dressed in a traditional blue and gold silk sari, Seema glowed as she was walked to the stage, flanked by her maternal uncle’s wife and her father’s sister. She was presented with toe rings – a symbol of a married woman in Southern India – by the ladies of the family. Seema then sought the blessings of everyone present.

There was hardly a dry eye left as she was led through the crowds slowly, stopping to ask everyone present to bless her new life.

The next day dawned early as we rushed to the Bangalore Palace grounds for the wedding, when Seema, dressed in a breathtaking salmon pink and gold embroidered sari with jasmine flowers in her hair, was married to Nirman. Her parents officially offered her hand in marriage to the man who made her glow.

As she stood there, receiving a line of visitors who came forward to bless the new couple, one couldn’t help but wonder at how much the modern Indian woman has achieved, while never straying from her culture, or community.