Why are We Replacing Mithai with Chocolate in Weddings?

www.pakpositive.com No matter how westernised we get, our wedding ceremonies and specially the mehndi days always look more appealing when they are kept traditional and customary. But we can't falsify the fact that our culture has been under going through many gradual changes for years. Our society has become modified in terms of wedding culture.

In the Christian culture, the bride is brought up the aisle up to the altar in the Church for the ceremony of Holy Matrimony by her father. In case the bride is fatherless, the bride is accompanied by her grandfather, brother or paternal uncle unless a maternal uncle is required.

In our local culture, which is mostly followed by local Christians too, most of us have however adopted this trend and bid adios to the beautiful tradition in which bride's entire family accompanied her on the aisle.

Likewise, the concept of cake cutting is exported from the �white weddings� too. The famous ritual "juuta chupai" is also parcelled from across border.

All these changes are a result of inspiration from other cultures. But one change which has become tremendously popular and seems to replicate the indigenous ritual of celebration is the idea of bride and groom having chocolates instead of the traditional sweets aka mithai.

I personally believe, certain aspects of a culture should always be kept intact because they reflect the philosophy of a religion and society.

In our culture, the demeanour of a bride has taken a 360 degree shift along with the rituals of mehndi function. When we talk about mehndi, the sweetest and reminiscent tradition is of that when family members come to give their blessings to the couple and conclude it by giving them bite of mithai. But sadly even this tradition is slowly getting transformed. Fancy chocolates have started to replace the conventional mithai.

Mithai such as Luddoo, Gulab Jamuun, Patisa are the essence of our culture, specially Punjab. I remember an aunt of mine who is a huge fan of sweets, would specially go on the stage for this ritual just to taste all these mouth-watering sweets. Her first sentence inquiry would always be "Mithai Nirala ki hia?" (Are the sweets from Nirala?)

Nirala is definitely a household name for sweets, and when it comes to weddings their sweets are par excellence. My friend is a die-hard fan of sweets and she made it a point that on her mehndi her table is garnished with all the tasty and colourful Nirala sweets. It was amazing to see a wide array colour mithais from bite-size to full-size ones. Tasty and colourful sweets add more feast to the festive event of Mehndi.

I am of the view, that sweets should not be replaced by chocolates as it is another way of killing our already dying culture. Lets continue sticking to our identity and indulge in the sweetness of mithai on our wedding day! mithai sweets www.pakpositive.com