By Pola Singh | Malaysia |
At a Sikh wedding, all eyes are drawn to the couple. The bride is radiant in her embroidered Punjabi outfit, jewellery and carefully draped dupatta. Beside her, the groom stands proudly in his sherwani and turban. Relatives admire them, cameras follow them, and their parents smile for the photographs. Yet after attending many weddings at local gurdwaras, I often find myself looking past the couple to one particular smile: the mother’s.
The stress begins long before the day
A wedding is meant to be the happiest day of a mother’s life. For many it is also the most stressful. The tension starts months earlier: the guest list and who gets which invitation, the wedding date and venues, the sangeet and other pre-wedding rituals, the gifts, and the clothes. Some families make a special trip to India for the latest fashion and designs.
She is thrilled, and perhaps already dreaming of becoming a grandmother. But the sleepless nights, the endless calls and messages, and the errands pile up. Well-meaning relatives phone with advice and suggestions, and each one is another task. Even families who hire a wedding planner find the mother cannot sit still. She wants a say in this and that, and she wants to know everything. By night she is exhausted, though she would never admit it.
The day itself
At the gurdwara, the bride’s family usually hosts. The groom’s entourage arrives to a warm welcome while the bride’s mother attends to arrangements and guests. She wants to watch her daughter take this momentous step, but her mind is pulled everywhere. Has everyone arrived? Is a relative waiting to be greeted? If something goes wrong, will she be expected to fix it?
I have seen mothers answer questions, accept hugs, receive ang paus and greet guests while keeping an eye on the clock. Every person deserves a gracious response, and she gives it. She may appear in dozens of photographs and still feel she missed part of her daughter’s wedding.
As a photographer, I have sometimes asked a mother to pause for a picture and heard, politely but firmly, “We are late. We don’t have time.” I understand. But those few seconds can preserve a moment she and her daughter will treasure for years.
In the evening the roles shift. When the groom’s family hosts the dinner, his mother carries the same strain: guests, seating, food, programme. Across the day, the two mothers take turns carrying worries few guests ever see.
Fathers work hard and care deeply too, but their roles often look lighter. Mothers have spent years remembering who needs attention and making family occasions run smoothly. By the wedding day everyone assumes she will know what to do, and the more capable she is, the more they ask of her.
And through it all, she must smile. A worried mother is told to relax, even as people keep bringing her their problems. She may be tired, emotional, close to tears, but she will not dampen her child’s happiness. The photographs show her proud and composed. They cannot show how much she is holding together.
My mother’s story
I know this because I watched my mother, Ram Kaur, go through it when my two eldest sisters, Ajaib Kaur and Piaro, were married. My mother is Chinese by heritage; my father was a full-fledged Sikh. Not fully versed in Sikh wedding customs, she followed every piece of advice she was given, even rituals that were outdated and have since faded away. She did not want anyone to think she was less Sikh, so she followed tradition one hundred per cent. In trying to please everyone, she added enormous stress to herself.
Lessons learnt
- Parents cannot satisfy everyone, no matter how good the suggestion. Choose what matters and let the rest go.
- No wedding is perfect. There will be hiccups. Accept them as part and parcel of life.
- Relatives and friends: don’t add to the burden. Don’t propose new things to do or buy unless you will personally make them happen. Offering ideas is easy, especially at the last minute. Let the parents decide what is best, and don’t be the nosey poker who piles on at the eleventh hour.
- Share the load. Fathers, children and relatives can take charge of practical tasks on the day. Guests can be patient when a mother seems hurried.
- Give her a moment. Free her to step away, sit beside her child and take in the ceremony, rather than discovering the day passed in a blur.
These mothers are the unsung heroes of our weddings, and they deserve more than admiration after the event. To the bride’s mother at the gurdwara and the groom’s mother at the dinner, I offer my heartfelt salute. We see your smiles. We should also see all that you carry behind them.
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Dr Pola Singh, who retired as Maritime Institute of Malaysia director-general in 2011, is also the author of ‘Uphill — The Journey of a Sikh-Chinese Kampung Boy’
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