Looking at a Punjabi bride, the kaleeras are something that is an eye-catcher. Kaleeras is one thing that makes a Punjabi bride different from the other brides.
Every north-Indian bride looks forward to her kaleera ceremony with those golden ornaments hanging by her wrist, complimenting her on her wedding. With a variety of bunches that look gorgeous, do you know the significance of this ceremony? Here’s all you need to know!
What Is The Significance Of Kaleere?
These umbrella-shaped ornaments signify happiness for the newlyweds and eternal love between the couple.
The significance is to provide good wishes to the bride and to remind her of her cousins and friends whom she is going to leave behind when she gets married.
The coconut shape of the kaleere is symbolic that she never runs out of food in the new home, while the metal symbolizes wealth and prosperity.
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What To Do With Kaleere Post Wedding?
After the wedding, the bride does either of these two things. She leaves one of the two Kaleere sets at the temple as an offering, to get the blessings from the Almighty. The other, she takes them to her new home as a souvenir from the wedding and as a happy memory of her family.
The Ritual Of Kaleere
It is after the chooda ceremony that kaleeras take their place on a bride-to-be’s wrists.
The bride’s sisters and friends are the ones to take part in the ceremony as they attach the kaleeras using a thread to a set of iron ‘kadas’.
By turns, the sisters and the friends tie the kaleeras to the bride-to-be. As soon as all the kaleeras are tied to the kadas, the bride tries to break her kaleeras over the heads of her unmarried sisters and friends.
If any part of the bud breaks on a girl during this time, then it is believed that soon that girl will also get married.
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Kaleeras Were Meant To Be Edible
Kaleeras have been a part of Punjabi and Himachali weddings for over a century. But the earliest kaleeras didn’t look like the ones we see now.
The ornaments hanging off a bride’s wrists then had coconuts, fox nuts, and other snacks for her. In those days, it was almost a given that the distance between a bride’s home and her new husband’s house would be significant. This would mean a fairly long journey for the bride, most often with people who were strangers to her. The bride’s kaleeras were meant to hold snacks for her in case she got hungry on the way.
Now, this sounds fairly harmless. But having these snacks next to her in the form of kaleeras meant that the bride wouldn’t have to forego her quintessential bridal shyness and ask her in-laws or husband for food on the way. She could eat these non-perishable items discreetly by just plucking them off her wrists.
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