No other country can compare with ours when it comes to sheer variety of wedding rituals. Religious, social and cultural, here’s a slice of Indian wedding pomp and splendour. Photographs by Sephi Bergerson. Text by Priyamvada Kowshik for Marie Clair (India, October 2009)

The sights and smells, noise and fervour, pomp and grandeur, rites and rituals… Can any other occasion on earth ever match the great Indian wedding saga? Yet, ask any married couple about the big day and they’ll tell you it was a blur, when they did as commanded – to keep the head low or dive for someone’s feet; to stand up or sit down; to hold hands or let go. Our weddings are a heady cocktail of religious and social commitments laid out like a cultural extravaganza. Rites and rituals form its backbone and every region, religion, community and sect has its own take. They celebrate the beginning of a shared life, assign roles, break the ice, and seek promises of loving and living together. Photographer Sephi Bergerson began documenting weddings two years ago.
His camera became an excuse to study this interesting social and cultural phenomenon. The original idea for Sephi’s book was to shoot five ceremonies. “But the subject kept growing,” says the Israeli photographer, who is stumped by how each wedding is different from the other. “I set out assuming a lot will be similar but there are so many different customs, they adapt and absorb.” And then there is Bollywood with its mehendi and baraat. Yet, when he asks people what is special about their wedding ceremonies, he is met with a dismissive shrug, “Oh, it’s nothing special, just a regular Indian wedding!” So it is.

Potpourri: (Top left) The bride was from Nagaland, her father a Sikh, the groom Swedish. As Bergerson says, “It was a mix of people that was so unbelievable that only India can provide.” Here, the bride, is being led down the aisle by her father at the breathtaking venue in Udaipur. Flying High: (Top) A Bengali wedding involves many elaborate and colourful rituals. On the night of the marriage, the bride sits on a low stool called piri, which is lifted by her brothers, and from her ‘elevated’ position, she circles the groom seven times, to indicate being wound-up securely to each other. The bride and groom then exchange garlands. Kabool Hai: (Left) A muslim bride signs the nikahnama before a Maulana. The bridegroom signs the Nikah separately and then the couple are pronounced married. “The entire ceremony took one minute and the wedding was over.” All In A Name: (Right) A Ladakhi Buddhist bride enters the wedding shamiana. Called bagston in the local language, weddings here are not religious but a social event. They don’t need a priest or a Lama. A couple can mutually decide to get married and inform the parents. This couple had been together for over 10 years and have two children. Relatives began to pressurise them to organise a ceremony where they could bless the couple by wrapping the sacred scarf or kathak on the pair as a symbol of their blessing

Quite An Earful: (Right) The sister of the bride examines the piercing for a dejhoru, an ear ornament that hangs from the middle of the cartilage. Young Kashmiri pundit girls get the painful piercing done as they prepare for their wedding. These ear ornaments symbolise marital status. Blown Away: (Below) Wedding games are part of most Indian marriages. In this wedding in Vishakhapatnam, the couple blows confetti into each others faces. “Sameera lived in Australia and Pradeep in the US and they came to their hometown to get married,” says the photographer. Strands of Love: (Above) In a Syrian Christian wedding, the sari that the groom presents his bride in church is called the mantrakodi. The night before the ceremony, strands of thread are drawn from this sari by the groom’s sister and twisted to form a cord. On this cord is tied the thaali, a leaf-shaped gold pendant with a cross. The mantrakodi is placed on the bride’s head by the priest, as he blesses her. Bangle Up: (Bottom right) The mother of a bride picks up the chura which is soaked in milk at a ceremony performed early in the morning on the day of a Punjabi marriage. The bride’s maternal uncles then slide the bangles down her wrist. The chura symbolises marital status and is worn by the bride for the next few weeks, or sometimes months. Tip Toe: (Left) In the temple town of Madurai, a groom slides a ring on his bride’s toe. The groom too wears his wedding ring on the second toe. The story behind this, says Bergerson, is that in the past, when women were expected to keep their heads down, the toe rings indicated to them the marital status of others.”

]]> http://www.sephi.com/press/our-big-fat-indian-album-marie-claire-magazine-october-2009/feed/ 5 http://www.sephi.com/press/books-review-street-food-of-india/ http://www.sephi.com/press/books-review-street-food-of-india/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:02:45 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=2516

Nilanjana S. Roy from OUTLOOK TRAVELER Magazine reviews my book Street Food of India (http://travel.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?261158)

I have a weakness for the half-plate — the ‘adha chai’ in a tiny kulhar, the half-portion of jhalmuri in a minuscule paper packet offered by some Calcutta vendors, the miniature dosa that would be slightly less than half a classic Udupi-sized portion. Sephi Bergerson’s Street Food of India is halfway between paperback book and coffee-table book, and in this format, his gentle photographs become alluring precisely because he’s offering an indicative, not authoritative, guide to eating out, Indian-style.

Bergerson flouted the two dictums handed out to every foreigner — don’t drink the water, and don’t eat the salad. From Paharganj and Chandni Chowk in Delhi to the bylanes of Bombay to Varanasi, Bergerson seems to have lived and travelled in this country using his eyes and his palate as a guide, falling in love with everything from the humble bread pakora in multiple variations to delicate daulat ki chaat. The South is under-represented in comparison, with just a few pictures and recipes — a sad omission that dilutes the value of the book.

Bergerson’s introductory essay is actually a thinly disguised love letter to the grand tradition of eating on the streets, a tradition that he fears is threatened by the explosion of food courts, and the demand for clean, hygienic fare that ignores what he considers the freshness, variety and the sheer spontaineity of street food.

The recipes that accompany his pictures are accurate but almost superfluous — his goal is to tempt you out onto the streets, not into the kitchen. This book is not definitive, nor is it an instant classic, but Bergerson’s carefully taken shots of everything we ignored, from a row of Banta bottles to the intricate curlicues of fruit juice vendors’ signs to a garlanded water cart makes it worth your while. This, like the street food it describes, is tasty, snack-and-go fare.

Half a page and some images form my book ‘Street Food of India’ in The Pioneer, New Delhi.

Kumkum Dasgupta from the Hindustan Times had reviewed my book ‘Street Food of India’ this weekend. At least she had “found something nice to say about the humble bread pakora”, but she thinks “images of water carts with different angles take up space in places”! I thought that a list on names of different foods take up too much space in her review of the book :-)

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A quick one today; Charmy Harikrishnan from the Indian Express samples some of Delhi

Rrishi Raote from the Business Standard had published a short Q&A with me about my street food book and how it all started in today’s Business Standard. Thanks Rrishi :-)

Jewels on the street

My book ‘Street Food of India’ came out in the right time when people are starting to realize that this phenomenon, so much a part of daily life in India, might not look the same way forever.

For the people of India, street food is an every day thing, like the sacred cow that roams the streets. Nevertheless, as incomes rise and ways of eating change, the inevitable is happening and the street-side treats may soon be a thing of the past. Street food, that symbol of wild, chaotic, urban India, is slowly being harnessed.

“THIS book fills a gaping void in the literature on India’s food and its food culture and does so most admirably. . . The author has written an intelligent introduction to the book. It stands out because it has none of the pretences and silly jargon of the arriviste columnist who holds forth on food week after week. . . This book does a service to a neglected part of Indian culture.” ‘Frontline Magazine’ (click the link to read the full review)

And see ‘Mail Today’ on 03/15/2009 (see picture).

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I am sitting at an internet cafe in Rishikesh, taking a break from life for the weekend. My wife’s family are visiting for three weeks and we are taking them around to show them a little bit of India the way we know it. It is an interesting time to try and compare my life in India today to the way it used to be when we were still living in Tel Aviv.

Shailaja Tripathy from The Hindu newspaper had interviewed me for her column ‘Going Native’ that was published today. Read the interview online HERE

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Great news to start the day today! :-) I have just received a mail form PDN PhotoServe that I am currently one of the Editor’s Picks for the 10 Featured Portfolios on the portal page! The new page just went up.Here is the link to PhotoServe home page, and the direct link to my PORTFOLIO.

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