Mehndi (rasm-e-hina) ceremony took place at tennis star Sania Mirza's residence in Hyderabad, as the glam couple came in from Hotel Taj Krishna, where their wedding had taken place on Monday.
Sania wearing a resplendent pink dress, and Shoaib Malik, wearing an emerald green kurta were welcomed by Sania's parents, as relatives from both families gathered at the Mirza household.
Mehndi (Rasm-e-Hina) takes place one or two days prior to the main wedding day. The event is traditionally held separately for the bride and the groom, and henna is symbolically placed on the couple's hands.
The groom's friends and family bring along sweets and henna for the bride, and the bride's family does the same for the groom. On the bride's ceremony the groom normally does not participate and similarly, on the groom's event the bride stays at home. Female guests are sometimes offered mehndi at the host's discretion.
Traditionally since there were separate functions for both the bride and the groom, the groom's function was called 'Tael' (oil) where female guests put some oil into the groom's hair. With the ceremony now held simultaneously for both the groom and the bride, the use of the term 'tael' has diminished greatly. In some cases, the entire ceremony is instead referred to as "Tael Mehndi" (Oil and Henna) ceremony.
The bride normally wears a green dress or yellows/oranges for the Henna celebration and uses only light, or mostly, no make-up. The groom will typically wear a casual Shalwar Qameez.
The bride and/or the groom are brought forward in the ceremony under a decorative dupatta by their close relatives. In the bridal ceremony, a certain number of married women (seven in most cases) who are closely related to the bride apply henna to her hands, and feed her some sweets. This ritual is supposed to bring good luck and logevity to the bride's married life. Similarly, on the groom's side, oil is applied to his head and sweets are fed to the groom.
One of the most fun part of the Rasme Henna or Mehndi celebrations is the song competition that generally happens between the bride and groom's side.
Young women and men sing teasing songs about the other side (where the bride's side pokes good natured fun at the groom's side and vice versa) and try to compete in this ritual sing song. Even traditionally, elaborate musical and acting performances were part of the Mehndi celebrations. Elaborate dance sequences and competitions between the bride and groom's families are also quite common these days.
Traditionally, the Mehendi was considered a women's event and men did not participate in it mostly. The sing song etc was left almost entirely to women. However, this has changed substantially in recent times with males featuring prominently in the Mehndi celebrations as well. A recent trend that has been gaining popularity is to announce a colour 'theme' for the mehendi whereby guests are supposed to dress up in a particular colour. Favourite mehendi colours are bright reds, oranges and yellows.
Sania Mirza and her newly-wed husband Shoaib Malik entered the Mirza household for the first time after they tied the knot at a city hotel in Hyderabad .
Clad in a pink salwar kameez, Sania walked hand-in-hand with Shoaib, who was wearing a green sherwani.
Sania's father Imran Mirza embraced his son-in-law and other members of the family welcomed the newly-wed couple into the residence.
Thw high-profile wedding of the two sporting stars took place three days ahead of the original schedule to silence the controversy and drama surrounding their marriage.
The mehndi ceremony, which was to be observed ahead of the wedding, was observed today at the Mirza residence and Marfa band was organised as part of the marriage celebrations. Sandhya and Bhavana, two of Hyderabad reputed mehndi designers, were called to apply mehndi to Sania, her spokesperson told reporters.
She said final rehearsals for the sangeet ceremony, scheduled to be held on Wednesday, are in progress. Shantanu and Nikhil-designed Sania's outfit for the reception, to be held on Thursday, has arrived from Delhi.
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