A MARRIAGE PROCESSION-Essay

Essay

A MARRIAGE PROCESSION

Outlines:
1-Bride’s house
2- Narrow street in the old city
3- Bang of the firecrackers
4-Golden ‘sehra’
5-Marriage guest
6-Toss coins in the air
7- Laughing and shouting
 In the modern quarters of the city seeing a marriage party going to the bride’s house, or a five-star hotel is not much fun . You do not see much of the groom and the marriage party as  it whizzes past you in a motorcade. However, a marriage procession passing through a street in the older part of the city is a wonderful sight Last Saturday while walking down a narrow street in the old city. I hear a fire crackers' exploding at a distance.

Marriage ceremony

Then came the sound of a drum.I did not know what to make of these sounds, but the people of the loodnty did. In a few minutes the street was full of children. Some women came out of their houses and stood in little lanes on both sides of the street.People passing through the street slackened their pace. 
Then I Know what the bang of the firecrackers and the sound of the drum meant. . A marriage procession was coming towards the street. As the noise of music and firecrackers grew louder, people moved to the sides of the street- Shop-keepers came out of their shops. 
Everybody waited to see the marriage procession. At last the procession entered the street. At the head of the' procession was a band with drums, bag-pipes and flutes They wore colourful but rather Shabby uniforms. The bandmaster with an ornamental staff in his hand strutted in front of his men.
 Then came the marriage party. The bridegroom dressed in shalwar, qameez and achkan was sitting on a horse. His face was hidden behind a golden ‘sehra’. All around the horse were his relatives and friends walking on foot. 
Some two hundred marriage guest followed. The marriage procession went on at a leisurely pace while women standing on roof tops and men and children lining both sides of the street watched every few minutes, a near relative of the bridegroom would take a handful of coins from a bag and toss them in the air. Beggers and children laughing and shouting, would rush this way and that were collect as many coins as they could. . 
The marriage procession took half an hour to reach the other end of the street and disappear round the corner. As the sound of music faded away, the women on the roof tops went down to attend to their household work, and the crowd gathered in the street slowly melted away.