Bombay Thaali , Madras Thaali or Mini Thaali ?
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 11:46PM If your mouth has started to water and your mind is wandering towards Indian restaurant menus, stop right there!
Thaali, aka "the maangalyam" or "the mangal sutra" is the literal thread with which south Indians "tie the knot" during the wedding ceremony!
This post is about the daily issues faced by Indian women and in turn their men, when it comes to wearing the Thaali !
A long long time ago, our wise forefathers decided that the wedding ceremony should involve something more elaborate than the exchange of wedding rings. They were masters at creating rites and rituals. Having the brides dad walk her to the altar, and have a priest do a "precision questioning and answering" session with the bride and groom and then make them exchange rings and kiss in front of everyone, would indeed qualify for a grand finale, but does not work for a wedding that has to last a few days. They had other ideas..
They said :
1. Let us make the Bride sit on her dad's lap
2. Have the groom tie the knot around the brides neck with a sacred thread with a gold medallion in it
3. have the grooms sister stand behind bride and make her put two more knots
4. Insist that the bride wear that medallion on that turmeric coated cotton thread or a permanent gold chain for the rest of her married life to show that she is already taken!
This whole thing has worked for the last few millenia. Maybe the women did not see it as a discomfort, but the modern day south Indian girl almost unanimously seems to complain about "Wearing the Thaali". Almost every married Indian woman I know in the US has some gripe about this issue.
Here are the most common grievances (please note, no woman I know will actually go on the record and say this and they will all discredit what I am about to write, but trust me.. it is true!).
1. The yellow thread looks like a rag or the gold thread is too heavy! Yes, more gold does not necessarily mean more happiness people! In their defense, the gold thread is really heavy. Not a comfortable wear.
2. The million or so little insignias, medallions, pendants hanging from the thread are a noisy cleavage cutting nuisance! Once again, the men have lost a chance to do the right thing here and in the process help themselves. Noise bad.. roughing up a womans soft skin in all the wrong places.. very very bad!
3. This thing cannot be hidden properly when wearing a low cut blowse or a tops and skirt. In short, does not go with anything other than a sari or something with a dupatta! Yeah, I can see that! Maybe that is where our wise forefathers(and foremothers) realized that men naturally look to a womans neck line and when they expect to stare at something, they end up seeing the Thaali and go "oh crap. she is taken already!". Maybe they intentionally insisted that married women display the thaali at all times..
4. This is not the Thaali we wear! Now we get into the Bombay vs. Madras discussion. Something that a Madrasi married to a Madrasi or a Bombayite married to a Bombayiite would never know! What I am about to tell you qualifies as "Ripley's believe it or not" material. There are 3,456,7823 types of Thaali. The two most popular versions are the straight thick gold thread Madras version and the black bead "karugamani" Bombay version! Why people from Bombay have this instead of the single thick gold strand has never been explained to me. All I get is "we wear only this in Bombay. so deal with it". This alone is the subject for many posts. This brings in the mom, the MIL, the wife and all female relatives into the malestorm!
In an attempt to sovle all of the above issues, some wise man (I am sure it was a man who couldnt handle this anymore) came up with the Mini Thaali. A miniature version of the gold pendent which is worn on a slender almost invisible gold chain.
Sleek, silent, smooth on the skin, with a universal appeal to the Madrasi and Bombayite, a real trend setter this one! It makes the wives happy. It makes the mothers and mother-in-law's happy too! They now go and boast about how their daughter or DIL is now wearing a thaali all the times.
If you are a newly married guy, or any dude who is currently going through the Thaali debate at home, much against your will (you possibly couldnt care less), send me a thank you note and I will refer you to all the shops that make the "Mini Thaali"!
Ps. Part of this post was originally a long comment in Terri's blog post... So, I decided to make this a post in itself!
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debate, maangalyam, mangal sutra, modern, thaali
Reader Comments (5)
sundar, please post pictures of this mini thaali. Googling would only result in photos and descriptions of mouthwatering delicacies.
what do you do if the mini thali itself is not approved by the parents/ILs?
SS
Cute.... i liked the way you have explained the whole thing..
Yeah, I'm really curious as well.
My ammah wears her chain with thali and thali kodi only to temple/special events.
Frankly, I've always said the whole thing together is crazy. My mom and several aunties I know have had upgrades for their kodi's changing from 7 sovereigns to 21 to 30. Apparently the newly married girls in my family get 30 and you leave that for special occasions and just wear the thali on a gold chain.
Considering that I'll prolly have to get married in the next five years. I would seriously like to see a picture of this mini thali.
thanks
Sundar .. chanced upon yr blog ... i am getting married soon ... was just thinking how to wear the traditional thaali with my dresses... mini thali sounds like a god's send .. plz mail me the list of shops where one can get this in chennai ... and may be a single picture of the mini thaili alone .. to show my in laws :-)))) would bw very gratefull.. anuramya@gmail.com