The weeding reception
The whole female part of the village was passing in and out,
bearing gifts, looking over the bride's trousseau, rushing into
an inner room to give a hand with the pilau, and talking in
high excited voices.
In one corner, apart from it all and completely hidden
under a pale blue ctiadur, or veil, stood the bride. She stands
motionless for hour after hour, while the stream of guests
goes by, unable to sit down unless the chief guest asks her to ,do
so, and taking no part in the general gaiety. I went up and
lifted the veil to greet her, and was horrified to see large tears
rolling down her painted cheeks. The palms of her hands
and her finger-nails were dyed with henna; her hair was
crimped with cheap green ceEuloid combs stuck into it: she
wore a pink machine-embroidered shirt in atrocious taste, and
a green velvet waistcoat brought specially from Qazvin; and
all this splendour, covered away under the blue chadur, was
weeping with fright and fatigue, thinking who knows what
thoughts while it stood there like a veiled image at the feast.
She was not to appear in public again for twenty-one days
after the wedding, they told me.
The male relatives of the bride sat round the guest room
floor in a quieter and more dignified manner. They were
being provided with food, and I was soon taken in to join
them and given bowls of soup coloured with saffron, with
pieces of chicken floating about it. When this was cleared
away, and when the women had also eaten in their noisier
part of the establishment, we began to enjoy ourselves. Two
copper trays were brought to use as drums; the bride's aunt,
a lady with as many chains and bangles as an Indian idol, sat
crosslegged to beat the time, and one after another the women
danced to the clapping of hands. They held up a handker-
chief which, at intervals, they threw to one or another of the
company, who would wrap it round a piece of silver and toss