Sunrays: The romance of Karwa Chauth

Is there an emotion more beautiful than love? The only person who loves you for being you, is your spouse. There is no blood relation. This heart-to-heart relationship is nourished by love alone.
When a girl finds her life partner, she is starry-eyed and brimming with emotions. When the initial euphoria after marriage dies down, one faces the realities of life. Every couple undergoes sweet, sour and bitter experiences. But if the intention of both is to stay together, then all problems can be overcome and each experience becomes a learning experience.
Karwa Chauth falls on the fourth day after Poornima, in the month of Kartika. It is a beautiful festival through which every married woman can relive her wedding day. She is at liberty to dress up as a bride, apply “mehendi” and “sindoor”, wear her best jewellery, glass bangles, Mangalsutra, “payal” and “bichuaas” with aplomb.
Marriage is sacrosanct, and Karwa Chauth celebrates it. The Sargi that is eaten before the break of dawn, is given by the mother-in-love because she is happy to see her son happily married, so she pampers her daughter-in-love. The girl’s mother may send across “mathi, feni and mithai”. The reason being that the girl who is fasting should not need to cook and the family can also enjoy the goodies. Eating “feni” cooked in sweetened milk before dawn gives enough calories to go through the day easily.
The Karwa Chauth story tells of Veerawati, whose husband’s body was riddled with pins and needles. Veerawati spent a year removing almost all the needles. When she stepped out to buy an earthenware pot for the Karwa Chauth fast, the maid removed the last of the needles. The husband woke up, thinking that the maid had saved his life. Veerawati kept the Karwa Chauth fast and eventually her husband realised the truth and came back to her. Well, the story is a legend and like many others, it has its share of ifs and buts.
My father interpreted the story in his own way. He said the pins and needles are the harsh words said to each other.
These verbal wounds cause the mind to become numb (unconscious) and couples drift apart. We have to remove those pins and needles and nourish the relationship. Love is the balm.
The Karwa song says that a fasting woman shouldn’t spin the loom, clean, cook, weave… because today, she is a VIP! She can indulge in henna and put her feet up and relax. In the yesteryears, women would do household chores all day. The festival song licensed them to a restful day. Let’s not get into the literal meaning of the words; let’s focus on the thought behind them.
There is a lot of animosity in young girls about why they should fast and why their husbands shouldn’t too. Don’t women enjoy grooming themselves. Do we even want the men to indulge in makeup and jewels? It’s a “girl thing”! And if the men fast too, who would pamper us? I wonder why any woman would forgo this beautiful opportunity to be pampered by the man whose name has been suffixed to hers and whose children she has borne.
Women pray for “suhag” and for the long life of their husbands. I don’t want my husband to pray for the same. If I am lucky, we shall enjoy growing old together. But eventually one of us has to go first, and I am very sure that I want to be the first one to go because I know not, how to live life without the man who is my world.
Even if you don’t observe Karwa Chauth, your husband shall be fine, but you shall miss out on the joy of celebrating love and the romance of doing pooja in the moonlight!
Our traditions are beautiful. Let’s keep them alive!
(The writer is a Chandigarh -based freelance contributor.)