Rite 15 · After the wedding
Bidaai
The goodbye, and the tears — the bride leaves the home she grew up in. She is carried in the doli to the departure point nearby, throwing a handful of rice back over her shoulder; a last blessing left for the house, and the truest, hardest moment of all the days.
The whole weddingBidaai · बिदाई
Rite 15 of 19Known locally as
Bidaai
/ bi·daa·ee / बिदाई
the farewell — the byoli's tearful leaving of her home, carried off in the doli, throwing rice back as a blessing.
What it is
The bride's farewell, as she leaves her parents' house for her husband's — traditionally carried off in a dolee, a palanquin.
Why it's done
A daughter leaving is the bittersweet centre of every Indian wedding; the whole celebration has been quietly leading to this loss. As she goes she throws a handful of rice back over her shoulder — a blessing left behind, a wish that the home she leaves never knows want.
How it unfolds
The family gathers at the door; she embraces each of them, throws the rice backward without looking, and is carried in the doli — often unable to walk for crying — to the departure point a little way off, where the road takes over.
Who needs to be there
The bride, her parents, her siblings — the whole house.
What's special — and how we keep it
There is no dry eye in a bidaai, ever. We remember it as the hardest, truest moment of the days — joy and grief in the very same breath.
Her side, and his
The bride's side
Hers, and only hers — the leaving, the tears, the handful of rice thrown back over her shoulder for the home she goes from.
The groom's side
His side waits a little apart, ready to take her on. For them it is an arrival, not a loss.
Pandit ji, the mantra & the song Draft
The mangal geet
The bidaai songs — the saddest of all the wedding's music, the women's voices breaking with hers.
In photographs
8 frames from this rite, in the order they happened.
Photographs in association with Balaji Photographer — a studio out of Barechhina, on the Almora–Pithoragarh highway.