{"id":3744,"date":"2018-08-12T08:01:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-12T02:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3744"},"modified":"2018-08-12T08:42:19","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T03:12:19","slug":"3744","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/3744\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridegroom on A Colt: Only Rich And Influential Could Afford White Stallion"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

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Nostalgia <\/u><\/span><\/h4>\n

Bridegroom on A Colt <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

ZGM <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

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I have an unbreakable bond with my childhood. That perhaps holds true about everyone. Often on festive, even not-that-jovial occasions, I instantaneously get connected to my childhood. \u2018Childhood memories\u2019 as someone has rightly said \u2018come crashing like a wave, and one reaches to them with arms out to grab them, to catch them, hold them close,\u2019 and I take great pleasure \u00a0in\u00a0 sharing \u00a0them with my friends; young and old.<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Traditionally, the seasons of \u2018fruitfulness\u2019 and weddings began to synchronize. I don\u2019t know if the tradition is seven hundred years old, or it has been there before also, but the general belief is that wazawan-the multi-mutton-dishes cuisine is most tasteful during the times when branches of trees are drooping with ripe fruits, and the singing insects fill the air with their melodious songs. \u00a0During, the season of marriages, \u00a0from midnight merry songs coming from nearby Mohallas, or women clapping hands in symphony with the send-off songs to the bridegroom or welcome songs to the bride or giggles and titters at the Mohar-Tulin (Bride\u2019s veil lifting formality) anything takes me to my childhood- \u00a0when my siblings, my mates and I enjoyed every moment marriage festivities.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Truthfully, I have no idea about the weddings of the \u2018loyalists\u2019 biggies\u2019 who \u201cloved to reap where they never sowed,\u201d \u00a0Nonetheless, one of the bitterest anecdotes about weddings of this class that I heard at a shop front and still lives in my memory is of the servant of a Khoja.\u2019\u00a0 His master had asked him to go running with an invitation to a far of the village outside the city and return water splashed on the road by waterman evaporates. \u00a0The poor servant after completing marathon running died at the doorstep of his master. Instead of mourning his death, the landlord bragged to his guest about his command and loyalty of the servant.\u2019 But for being born in the city of toiling artisans and craftsmen, who for centuries had bedecked our landscape with great works of art and masterpiece artifacts, I have vivid impressions about the wedding celebrations in and around my birthplace- that in their own right had a royal touch. \u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
Some days back at a marriage ceremony, I overheard some youth talking about arranging a top-notch BMW car for their bridegroom friend and festooning it with best garden fresh flowers; the conversation instantly took me down the memory lane. I remembered, some prominent \u2018tanagawalas\u2019 (chariot drivers) famed for hiring out tall Peshawar breed horses to bridegrooms. Of all \u00a0\u00a0the top horses, the one owned by\u00a0\u00a0 Qadir Chahan, a stout tanagawala, known for donning a huge Gilgit-Baltistan cap was counted best of all. Many bridegrooms wished to ride his horse to the bride\u2019s house. But, only the most influential could afford the tall white horse of Qadir Chahan, \u00a0notorious hoodlum an ardent supporter of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad. In our Mohalla, two tanagawala brothers Sona Gour and Jamal Gour were known to have the best stallions, one white and another black. During the wedding seasons, they always had the advanced bookings for their horses- in their own right they turned VIPs during the festive season. \u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/h5>\n
Those days \u00a0, there were just a few cars in and around the Ward four, perhaps there were three only in our locality, and the owners were the upstarts who after 1947 for their political connection had made \u00a0\u00a0quick money. During those weird times, fiends passed \u00a0as saints. Interestingly, one of the car owners an unlettered hugely turbaned contractor had been introduced by Bakshi Sahib to Prime Minister Nehru as Qazi-i-Shahar at a musical function in Badamwari. During those times, I don\u2019t remember having ever seen a bridegroom arriving at the bride\u2019s house by car. However, the bridegrooms married outside the city would use garlanded boats- Shakaris and Dongas as a means of transport to the brides\u2019 house and return through the same mode of transport. Most of them embarked into boats at various Ghats of the serpentine waterway- the Mar Canal. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
In our Mohalla, a tall and hefty small time was married somewhere near the sixth bridge on the Jhelum. His kiosk, for selling\u00a0 \u00a0roasted soya beans, chickpeas, boiled red beans, and roasted chestnuts were favorite with children- he was jovial and full of humor. \u00a0\u00a0He could not win the favor of \u00a0Sona or Jamal for hiring one of their tall horses to ride on the bride’s home; one of his friends had hired an ass height pony for him. Sitting on pony\u2019s back his feet literally touched the road. My mates and many other joined the singing women and accompanied him to the bride\u2019s house \u2013 to see lest the pony collapses under his heavyweight.<\/span><\/h5>\n
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Nostalgia
\nBridegroom on A Colt
\nZGM <\/p>\n

I have an unbreakable bond with my childhood. That perhaps holds true about everyone. Often on festive, even not-that-jovial occasions, I instantaneously get connected to my childhood. \u2018Childhood memories\u2019 as someone has rightly said \u2018come crashing like a wave, and one reaches to them with arms out to grab them, to catch them, hold them close,\u2019 and I take great pleasure \u00a0in\u00a0 sharing \u00a0them with my friends; young and old.
\n\u00a0Traditionally, the seasons of \u2018fruitfulness\u2019 and weddings began to synchronize. I don\u2019t know if the tradition is seven hundred years old, or it has been there before also, but the general belief is that wazawan-the multi-mutton-dishes cuisine is most tasteful during the times when branches of trees are drooping with ripe fruits, and the singing insects fill the air with their melodious songs. \u00a0During, the season of marriages, \u00a0from midnight merry songs coming from nearby …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[345,346,347,46],"class_list":["post-3744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take","category-kashmir-talk","tag-kashmir-culture","tag-kashmir-marriage","tag-nostalgia-kashmir","tag-zahid-g-muhammad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3744"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3749,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions\/3749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}