A Ram Bhajan is measured by its weight in gold – so dress up

Dressing down to a glittering family function meant standing out as plain amid the fabulous food and finery.

A Ram Bhajan is measured by its weight in gold – so dress up

If you want to feel shabby, turn up at an Indian function in a linen frock – fine Italian linen, but nobody cares – wearing the pearl earrings that were your father’s wedding gift to your mother, tiny pearls that are as precious to you as air.

Swing your everyday cross-body leather bag across the front of your linen dress, and throw on a pair of comfortable, if a little special needs, Fitflops and the recipe for frumpishness is complete.

I was at a family function – a deeply spiritual prayer called a Ram Bhajan that was being enacted in memoriam of a beloved aunt who died 10 years ago, organised by her children.

I had been instructed to welcome the guests arriving at the cavernous hall. An usher doubling up as the MC, my job was to show them the buffet – an array of delicious vegetarian dishes accompanied by spicy pickles and a traditional dessert. When that was done, I was to stand at the podium, mic in hand, and welcome everyone.

Bejewelled beauties, wafts of sandalwood and jasmine, frangipani and rose announcing their arrival, promenaded along the length of the hall, their gait undeterred under the weight of gold… Maang tikkas running down middle partings to rest on foreheads; rubies, emeralds and diamonds sunken into filigree whorls of gold, earrings as big as yoyos, gleaming thick strings of gold with sovereigns attached, bracelets fitted on to fingers so they formed an intricate network of spidery gold strands across the top of the hands…

The gold standard jumps before a function requiring jewels, bank vaults and home safes are opened and ornate women’s finery is carefully extracted from velvet-lined boxes and polished to gleaming lustre.

Gold! R2,318 an ounce at the time of writing this…

Agni – God of Fire

Mythology has it that one of the most invoked Hindu gods, Agni – God of Fire – consummated with water through pure gold. And so it is said that gold represents purity, deity and power, and has, through the ages, marked the most sacred and auspicious Indian ceremonies. Hindu in-laws give gold, the metal meant to cover all bases – wealth, heritage, positivity – as a mandatory wedding gift to new brides.

At this family function were family members – including a short brigade of kohl-eyed Von Trapps – I’d not seen in 10 years.

The women were draped in acres of silk, organza, georgette, chiffon and brocade; saris/lehengas/salwar kameez in deep exotic shades: turquoise and vermilion; jade and tourmaline…

Much in evidence were small velvet handbags with gold drawstring tops, turned-up Ali Baba sandals, cashmere stoles; hair was shoulder length or long, curled, tied with satin ribbons, fastened with bejewelled combs, in high and low buns…

I, in my unadorned linen and pearls, had missed the memo detailing the dress code, arriving in the equivalent of sweats and takkies to a black tie do.

I hadn’t been in Durban since I went to that coastal city to bury my aunt in 2014, in June when the shirt-sleeves weather is champagne sparkly and balmy; when the light dances and glints off the sea.

My aunt lived in Merebank, on a hill overlooking a sprawling paper mill belching thick white smoke that was blamed for my uncle’s pulmonary problems. My uncle, who’d worked at the mill for decades, died gasping for air.

Middle-class Durban has moved north over the years, and so did I, abandoning what was once the family seat, Merebank, and putting up at the new landing place, Umhlanga.

It’s green and lush and high density, close enough to the sea to count ships lining up on the horizon, waiting to deliver their cargo in the ship-choked harbour.

Here in the north is evidence of wealth (“Tenderistas,” muttered a curmudgeonly cousin) – some of it is new wealth counted in supercars (one Maserati, two Ferraris and many Porsches).

Feat of faith

The memorial had been organised by my first cousins (our fathers were brothers), both lawyers who now live in Australia – she in a small town in New South Wales, he in Melbourne. It was a feat of faith, a logistical marathon orchestrating this function from thousands of kilometres away.

Two hundred and fifty people were invited – 200 came; the aunts were assigned tasks: each making the Indian delicacy they are renowned for in the family.

Butter, ghee, cardamom, rice, rose syrup, slivered almonds, chickpea flour, semolina, sugar and dahl – ingredients that were turned into delectable treats; speciality prayer food, sweetmeats and savoury delicacies that would be eaten at teatime during a break in the prayer.

Polis, coconut-filled moon-shaped delicacies; gulab jamun dipped in rose syrup; small rice cakes; delicately layered banana puri; murukku; roht; burfi; chana magaj; sweetly stuffed chickpea balls called woorandai; soft super-sweet orange pretzels; jalebi: trays of offerings from each family were carefully assembled and placed around the prayer circle.

On the morning of the big event, a precursor to the evening spectacle of fire and dance, a Havan, a special prayer, for health, wealth and happiness was done – my cousins crisp and fresh in simple white cotton. Saffron-coloured big-headed marigolds were dismantled petal by petal, to be thrown into the fire. The blessing of deities was invoked.

The Ram Bhajan prayer, the priest explained to the Catholic me, was a celebration of God in the form of dance.

This special prayer is specific, he said, to my father’s tribe – Telugu people, also called Andhras – a Dravidian ethnolinguistic group who speak the Telugu language and are native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh in India.

For context, I come from a line of strong (headstrong?) women, as persuasive as Trump at a rally, who each, in turn – my granny, then my mom – convinced their husbands to abandon their Hindu faith and take up the mantle of Catholicism.

Baptism was followed by holy communion and confirmation ceremonies, mass on Sundays and high and holy days, obligatory membership of the secular “good deeds” Society of St Vincent de Paul and many, many sayings of the rosary.

Agnostic

My father who, until he met my mother, had been an agnostic, embraced his new religion with the zeal of a convert. Soon he was heading up the St Vincent de Paul society and cajoling local business people (most of them Indian non-Catholics) to part with food and blankets for the poor. He was good at it and it was remarked on, when he died, how unfortunate his dying was for the needy of our town.

During the prayer, which involved fire, the clanging of hand cymbals, dancing and chanting, a woman in the audience rose, slowly gyrating her body, swaying to the tap-crashing cymbals and performing gravity-defying backbends.

“Trance,” my cousin whispered in my ear as we watched this spectacle, mesmerised by the rhythmic movements of this woman in a purple sari, whose eyes were fixed and expression blank.

At interval, just as I was beginning to relax with a nice cup of tea and a hot vada (made from ground lentils, spices and herbs), someone I vaguely knew from my teen years asked: “Why you looking so drab?”

Well, that’s what happens when you wear unadorned linen to an Indian function. You stand out. DM

Charmain Naidoo is a journalist and media strategist.

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