Seemantham - Baby Shower

We arrived at the house for the Seemantham, and were immediately invited inside for some food.

The food was served on paper leaves on the ground, and was mostly sweet. We had a type of sweet and cardamom roti, which could be drizzled with milk to make it extra delicious. There were also gujiyas and other dishes flavoured with sugar and cardamom.

After we ate we went back outside the front of the house to make room for more people who were arriving and coming in to eat.

My camera is absolutely no good in low light...

Out the front, although there were men and women present, it was clear that for this occasion the women had the prime spot, while the men stayed further back.

A chair was prepared by draping a decorative cover over it, and the pregnant lady sat in this chair. In front of her, laid out on the ground, was an increasing selection of sweets, bangles, saris, fruits, and flowers.

The father of the new baby rigged up some extra lighting outside so that people could get better photos and selfies, before getting changed into smarter clothes, while the mum-to-be had to sit in her special chair. The crowd of guests gradually grew, so that more mats had to be brought out for women and children to sit on around the offerings in front of the chair. Everyone was talking and giggling and taking photos, and it was a very festive atmosphere.

When things got started, women singly or in pairs made a ceremony of giving puja to the mother-to-be, using their right hands to put coloured powder on her cheeks and third-eye (the forehead between the eyebrows), then putting a flower in her hair.

After this blessing they selected gifts from the ground to give to her, offering a selection of things in turn including non-food and food items. The food items were ceremonially fed to the mother, although there was much giggling at this because she had clearly eaten enough sweets and didn't feel like anymore, so she had a job of posing as the sweets were fed to her, but while trying not to eat them!!

Once a few women, all family members I think, had made their offerings, one of the ladies began to sing. When she finished, another lady sang. I couldn't understand the words obviously, but it sounded beautiful. While the singing went on, someone came to ask me if I would sing. I am terrible at singing and am incredibly shy about it, but I also didn't want to be rude. I took some tie to pluck up my courage and allowed myself to be led into the middle of the group of women in order to sit with them and sing. Everyone was chatting and laughing amongst themselves, so I steeled myself and took a deep breath to start - and then a few people started shushing everyone and telling everyone to listen to me! I was so embarrassed and self-conscious!! With everyone paying attention to me, I had to sing a cappella in front  of everyone. I don't know many songs all the way through, and I needed to use a song that I felt confident I could remember, so I ended up singing the Welsh national anthem... People were very nice about it when I finished though, and they said that my song was dedicated to the mother. I'd quite like to think that she might be the only mother in India who has had the Welsh national anthem dedicated to her at her seemantham :)

After the 'success' of my singing, one of the women took my had and led me up to the front to make offerings to the mother. As a left-hander, I kept getting a bit muddled with trying to do things right-handed. It shouldn't have been too difficult to remember, but so much of my brain power was being taken up with feeling embarrassed and trying not to show it too much, that I didn't seem to have enough leftover to deal with coordination and so on. Luckily, the women kept me on track and told me if I was doing things wrong, and finally after several women had joined me to make the pujas and to get photos with me, I could finally get out of the spotlight for a bit.

Even though it was incredibly cringeworthy for me, I was also very conscious of how lucky I was to have been included in such a ceremony. I know we are a bit of novelty here and so people like to offer us tea, have photos taken, and so on, but every time it happens I feel very lucky to have been able to travel somewhere and to have this opportunity to be introduced to people who live in such a friendly, welcoming, hospitable culture, and to be able to engage with them and share experiences with them. Along with my embarrassment, I felt very happy to have been dragged into participating.

The giving of offerings and puja continued a little longer, and taking photographs continued longer still. Eventually the gathering started to break up and people began to drift away. We talked a while longer with several people and more people wanted selfies with us, before we too said our goodbyes and walked back to the farm.

So many women across India get such a raw deal compared to the men, so it was wonderful on this occasion to see the woman being treated as a Goddess 💗