Text on the card reads:
In Azamgarh, UP, the Yadav wedding fun often continues for 9 days.
On Day 8, when the baraatis are out of the house, the women get together for a party of their own.
The highlight of the party is a raunchy, gender bending ritual called Naktoriya.
Text on the card reads:
The women get together in one house and pair up.
One of them dresses up like a man.
Dancing with each other,
they bring their hips together.
They “imitate” a newly married couple.
That is, they depict sexual acts on the “first night” i.e. the suhaag raat. They mock their husbands or the bridegroom and their sexual performance.
“A bridegroom who cannot move his hip is a child.”
The songs have so much gaali galoch, they are called Gaali Geet.
This continues the next day too!
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On Day 9, it is time for a whole new level -
The ritual of maur servana.
The women go to shrines for worship, after which they dance and sing a gaali geet.
While this is happening, the bride and groom visit each shrine in the village to announce a successful wedding!
Curious to know what the songs are like?
Swipe for some no-holds-barred gaali geet lyrics >>
Text on the card reads:
A gaali geet
We put food on a golden dish, the bridegroom doesn’t eat.
A bridegroom who cannot move his hip is a child.
We put water in a cup, the bridegroom doesn’t drink,
A bridegroom who cannot move his waist is a child.
We made a bed with A cover and pillows.
A bridegroom doesn’t sleep
A bridegroom who cannot move his waist is a child.
“Cannot move his hip” BOLE TOH inability to perform in bed IN CASE INNUENDO MISS HO GAYA
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IS ONE ENOUGH? NO NA? SO HERE’S ANOTHER!
One last gaali geet (translated)
This one is sung during the maur servana.
Chinaro (a lazy woman also an innuendo for a sex worker) goes to Dīh Bābā (a village deity)
… to worship in the best way,
She has intercourse with Dīh Bābā 1,000 times.
The bride’s aunt goes to Dīh Bābā to worship in the best way,
She has intercourse with Dīh Bābā 1,000 times.
Rukumina kā māī (name of the bride’s mother) goes to Dīh Bābā to worship in the best way,
She has intercourse with Dīh Bābā 1,000 times.
Text on the card reads:
Scholars say that rituals like gaali geet are a way of reversing the hierarchies of gender that weddings are based on.
Their outrageousness is both a critique or defiance of the hierarchy, and also an acceptance - because it happens for a short time, before people settle into every day conventions.
All over South Asia we see rituals of this kind, especially at weddings and sometimes at festivals. Tell us of the ones you know in comments or DMs.
