Baramula, September 18
Late-evening marriages are back in Kashmir, a scenario unimaginable from the beginning of militancy in 1990 till last year.

This is not to say that things have improved a lot in this trouble-torn valley. It is only that people have begun taking violence in their stride. These days marriage ceremonies continue up to 11 p.m.

Termed as the people’s initiative towards normalisation of life here, complete normalcy will resume when marriages continue the entire night. Yet, people here view it as a very healthy sign.

An interesting feature of these marriages is that you can see young girls wearing jeans. Jeans is probably the least preferred mode of dress in such formal functions in other parts of the country. But here girls get the liberty to wear jeans in marriages as they cannot do so in colleges or other places.

As per the traditional Kashmiri culture marriages earlier used to begin around 10 p.m. when the “baraat would leave for the bride’s house. The marriage ceremony used to continue the entire night amidst dances, celebrations and serving of all kinds of meat and vegetable dishes.

Several marriages are taking place daily here these days. These will go on till the month of Ramzaan begins in late October. One can see colourfully decked up vehicles on the way to their respective destinations on highways. People decorate the cars here with paper of various colours and artificial flowers unlike the plains where real flowers are used.

No marriage party was targeted ever since militancy started, revealed Mr Ali Mohammad, a transporter of Srinagar. As people feared venturing out at night, marriages were solemnised during the day. The “baraats” would usually leave at 10 a.m. and come back by 4 p.m. but now people normally start the ceremonies sometimes at 4 p.m. only.