Truly Traditional

As the trend of lavish five-day weddings becomes the norm, many are going back to the roots to revive lapsed traditions

- Shweta Desai

MANJU Gosai’s wedding to her friend and classmate Swapnil Gadag last December was a dreamy affair. The fairytale wedding took place in the coastal town of Boisar in Palghar, near Mumbai.

The 30-year-old Garhwali native ditched the trademark red lehenga and draped herself in a breezy Maharashtrian nine-yard Nauwari saree for the inter-faith wedding ceremony. She appeared on the mandap in the traditional regalia, complete with the pearl-encrusted nath (nose ring) and stood behind the white cloth partition separating her and the groom. The unique Warli wedding in Dhavleri style commenced with three elderly women singing in unison. The women are widows—known as Dhavleri—and are called upon to ordain weddings as per the customs of the Adivasi Warli tribe to which the groom belongs. 

The Warli tribe, which lives in the Palghar and Thane districts on Maharashtra’s border with Gujarat, consider Dhavleri widows auspicious and bestows on them the honour of performing weddings, unlike the Hindu majority that, in many cases, ostracises and casts out widows from joyous occasions. The Dhavleris sing a 35-minute-long wedding song in the Warli dialect, inviting all the forces of nature—the sun, the moon, air, rivers, forests, and their wives and children—to bless the couple. At the end of the song, the bride and the groom garland each other and they are declared to be married.