My Thaali

We Malayalis have the quickest marriage ceremony of all - 5 mins and it’s over. The only thing that remains is your thaali and your wedding ring.

Now having got married twice – one the Malayali style and the other a not Malayali style at all, I think I have some authority to talk about the thaali and its effects.

OK lets rewind to the first marriage. Five minutes before the marriage ceremony was due, my mom realised that somebody had actually robbed my thaali. You see it was tied on a yellow thread and then immersed in sandalwood paste in a steel bowl. This bowl was kept in front of a few pictures of Lord Shiva (apparently my muhoortam was not correct and we had to offer many poojas. On reflection now I know!!).

Anyway when she realised that my thaali was missing she removed her thaali, hooked it on to a few strands of white thread (God knows where she got that from!) and presented it to my to-be first husband to tie around my neck. Because I had such a terrible experience in my first marriage that Thaali was more like a noose. I never ever wore it, I even removed my wedding ring soon after. When things got really tough, I even cut up the thaali with a pair of scissors.

Fast forward to exactly 12 years and six months later and I got married a second time. There wasn’t anyone attending this ceremony, we made sure of it. It was just between us. We stood in front of my small pooja corner with the pictures of all Hindu Gods. DH had kept his parents picture by the side of it. Then after a small prayer he tied this thaali round my neck. The Thaali itself was a gift from my parents.

The difference is that now do I wear this Thaali – it’s not a proclamation to the outside world that I am married, not a want to keep up with the tradition, not to please anyone in the family and definitely not because I want to feel married; it’s a tribute to this lovely man who has given me so much of love and still continues to do so. Wearing that thaali just makes me feel good – plain and simple and no other reasons to it.

You see I do not wear that Thaali round my neck, it is tied to a thick black thread and I wear it around my hips – out of sight of everyone, intimately close and deeply cherished.