- Creativity Goes A Long Way Over the Holidays!
- Alignment
- Why hire a Nutritionist?
- My rendition of “Can you feel the love tonight?” – The Lion King
- The Tale of the Adventurous Allergens
Four Corners
Enough blood, sweat and tears would drown the average person. This lady would robustly ride the waves of life, akin to a shark owning the ocean.
Painted Deep Yellow
“Gather all the different colours and start placing them little by little on the board.” “Ooo! I’ll start with blue and red, we can do that on the outside.”
“Can I help?”
“Yes, OK, grab a handful of each colour and make a pretty design.”
The excited voices of the young girls and ladies were beautifully working together as they coordinated the location of the rice colours on the penciled-in board.
Family, friends and photographers gathered in the backyard to gaze as the board began to fill up with blue, red, green, yellow, pink and purple coloured rice.
As she stood in the middle of the busy kitchen, she smiled – knowing everyone was there to celebrate her, whether willingly or not. It didn’t feel like the event was for her; she felt like a guest attending a cousin’s pre-wedding event.
“After you,” announced an angelic cousin of hers, bursting the bubble she was stuck in for a minute there. Cousin ushered her along; she walked into a pool of celebration, nerves, excitement and unfamiliarity, not knowing how on earth she would swim – no lessons ever taken in life.
“Not there!” she laughingly tried to keep her mouth shut, otherwise the warm gooey-ness would sneak past her pursed lips. The yellow goop, a traditional mixture of turmeric, oil and water covered her face, legs, arms, hands and feet. The ritual would seem funny to the outsider. Hands of family members vigorously rubbing paste onto the bride- or groom-to-be is meant to cleanse and beautify the skin.
Laughter, chatter, and sticky hands trailed behind as she ran back into the house to shower.
Yellow-tinted and content, she plopped down on the comfy couch in between her cousins, and sipped on a delectable cup of masala chai.
Painted Cherry Red
Adorned in a deep, sultry red, the traditional lengha draped over her curves in all the right places. Intricate thread work spiraled and criss-crossed the soft silk material created by patient and hard-working hands. Hands of the seamstress are due credit, for long days seated in front of a sewing machine.
The lengha flowed up and down, side to side, following the wearer’s movements. The stunning two-piece ensemble overlapped with the heavy headpiece, draped over her low bun, held together with thirty-odd bobby pins.
Eyebrows perfectly groomed, lined with tiny circular bindis, the colours of red and white to exquisitely match her outfit. The lobes of her ears weighed down with glimmery earrings. Ear holes were neatly slathered with vaseline and numbing cream; we wouldn’t want the shiny creams to take away from the elegance of the earrings. The middle of her forehead had another gigantic shiny jewelry piece glued to it.
Her wrists were embellished with bangles and long thick strings were tied to them. At the ends of the strings dangled half a coconut and shiny ethnic trinkets.
Cheekbones highlighted and bronzed, her nudey-pink lips smiling; wedding day had finally arrived.
She couldn’t believe how much her life was about to change. She had lived at home forever, even throughout university, and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her parents’ nest. Practically and physically, she knew she would be fine, but emotionally? Could she handle the adjustment of moving entire countries and getting married and adopting a whole new family?
How do brides leave their own tribe behind, and then have to exist as if their birth mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters no longer exist? Biological families dripping in blood, sweat and tears. Under moonlit, starry skies, bright sun, rainy seasons, they birth a daughter, feed her, bathe her, hold her, kiss her and guide her. Family that is there through the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years of the life of their girl and raising her to the best of their ability.
Why does tradition need to rob us of our joyousness? Why do we bow down to tradition even though we are deeply and truly hurting our spirits?
She couldn’t catch a grip on her thoughts and feelings and didn’t want to succumb to customs that didn’t make sense to her. It did…not…feel…right.
My family is as important as any other family, she thought. Why do I have to pretend like they don’t exist anymore because I’m getting married? What in the world?
A marriage of two people is meant to be completely joy-filled, and not one that is also laden with sadness and guilt.
A deep sense of knowing she needed to follow her intuition led her to the start of creating her own artwork.
She knew she had to do something involving her love of artwork.
Respectfully, she would take action for change.
Painted Blood Red
As she stood right beside her husband of 2 hours, she was faced with the blinding lights of the photographers from every direction.
Hustle and bustle didn’t exist at that moment.
There was no more chatter, no more clinking of glasses, no more shuffling footsteps, no more laughter…no more anything.
Even her breathing became drawn out. Her chest rose cautiously with each long inhale, 1-2-3-4, and sank slowly with each exhale, 1-2-3-4.
An out of body experience unlike any other she had ever experienced before.
Barely visible in between the bright lights, stood her family, everyone shoulder to shoulder.
Like glass dolls, they seemed to be frozen in time.
Eyes fixated on her, waiting to witness her next move.
A hand seemed to slither past the sea of statues around her, holding a handful of white rice. Not coloured, such as the rice from the other day. This time it was plain white, divinely matching the white lights surrounding her.
She stared at the rice, not having the slightest clue what to do with it. She didn’t study each and every tradition beforehand. Her husband was staring blankly as well, he didn’t have the faintest inkling either. This was their first time engaging in any such rituals so she wasn’t looking to him for support.
Frankly, this part of the bride’s day was a sacred one between her and her family and didn’t have much to do with her husband.
Her mind was completely blank, her mouth bone dry. She needed water but she dared not ask for it in the midst of this stand-still moment. She darted her eyes nervously back and forth, holding her breath. She hoped someone, anyone, would utter the words meant to initiate the next part of this custom.
“Take the rice,” a familiar voice sternly spoke, breaking the eerie silence. The new bride took a breath, after what felt like five whole minutes. She was relieved to know she wasn’t the only living being in the room.
“Face this way and without turning your head to look back, throw a bit of rice in all four corners of the house.”
Like a square? she asked herself, but couldn’t find her voice at that moment.
“Don’t look back,” her grandmother repeated.
She nodded her head yes, her head suddenly felt as if it weighed a ton; up, down, still in the slowest of motions. All while she managed to utter a barely audible, “OK.”
Her brown eyes glossed over, forgetting what her grandmother told her to do only a second ago.
Her aunt painfully spoke, “You are saying your last and final goodbye to us now. You are blessing your family while throwing the rice. This rice is for us to eat now.”
So I can’t eat with my family anymore? I’m only allowed to eat at my in-laws? Confused and light-headed, she felt so alone in this moment. She could not fathom the meaning.
In this sacred moment, the world consisted of her and the lights, although within her own heart, she could feel the sadness in her mother’s heart. They couldn’t even lock eyes, the gloom would be too much to bear.
“Take the rice and put it in one of your hands; now take a little bit and throw it into that corner,” Aunt softly voiced as she pointed in front of me.
Lady Bride managed to lift her arm, pinched some rice and threw it towards her left side.
“Yep, now do the same thing on the other side,” her other aunt chimed in, between sobs.
Then she did something no other bride had ever done before.
Without thinking twice, in the spur of the moment, she disappeared into the other room, ignoring the loud gasps from her family. It’s as if spirit was guiding her.
When she returned, she was carrying the white board used previously for the coloured rice.
She motioned everyone to give her some space. Gently laying the board onto the floor, as difficult as it was to kneel down in the ten extra pounds of wedding gear weight, she sat awkwardly. She was sweating in the heat of her lengha combined with the fifty or so bodies crowded into one tiny room.
“What are you doing?” she was nervously asked by her family, everyone staring in disbelief.
“Get up,” someone angrily muttered.
She forcefully ignored the voices, body language and energy spewing through the air, managing to muster up the last bit of courage left in her.
Having no plan for even the next minute, her body was becoming increasingly agitated in the inconvenient position of her legs and feet.
Words would not do a thing. She needed action immediately. Earth-shattering action.
She needed to show something on this board that would make it all make sense.
This specific custom had no place in her life.
Lips quivering, eyes batting furiously trying to contain the waterfall of tears, no care as to whether her makeup was completely ruined.
She couldn’t move her hands too quickly either as her delicate wrist jewelry was holding her back from being able to use her hands properly.
As fragile as her ethnic adornments and body language were, her soul proved the complete opposite.
Her warrior-like spirit never failed her in the past. She sure would not let it fall short of anything miraculous now.
She looked down at her shaky hands, not knowing what she was going to show everyone.
Chitter-chatter again, with her family members looking at each other, then her, then each other again.
Art is in my blood, she reflected. This spirited lady would create art.
She needed something sharp. My earring! She grabbed a hold of her ear from both sides, yanking the backing off, ughhhhh! she wailed as her ear throbbed, feeling something wet on her fingers. She looked at her hand and saw that her ear was bleeding profusely. She was never one to wear artificial jewelry, her body rejected fake metals. No surprise there as her mind and spirit acted in tandem to be houses of beautiful truths; she was a genuine soul.
“Oh my gosh! Your ear! Tissue! Tissue!” shouted her mother.
The blood dripped onto the board. “Here,” her mother dropped to her knees, trying to cover her daughter’s ear with the tissue. Bride looked up at her mother, locking eyes after what seemed like an eternity. “Together, we will stay together.”
Both women sobbing, and holding their gaze, the bride’s hands seemed to take on a life of their own. Not afraid to prove a point, she touched the wet board and began circling her fingers in a trance-like state. To everyone’s amazement and bewilderment, a shape had taken form.
She was about to rewrite history.
“Together, we will all eat together, from this day forward.”
The energy of the room seemed to shift from troubled to solace as the general consensus in the room was that this bride was not one to leave her family behind.
What she would leave behind is a symbol of love and unity among all.
She left her mark with a blood heart.