Kaara Dawath!?

In our community ‘Kaara Dawath’ means a sumptuous non-vegetarian lunch or dinner party, especially hosted at the end of all marriage ceremonies. ‘Kaara Dawath’ is hosted by the groom’s family and the bride’s family separately on different dates. Today afternoon I attended Bunny’s Kaara Dawath party.

We, Vishwabrahmins are not supposed to consume non-vegetarian food and this was strictly adhered to by our ancestors. Then with changing times Vishwabrahmins of Telangana started eating non-vegetarian food secretly and then openly and regularly. However during the period of marriage ceremonies non-vegetarian food is not prepared in the house nor served at the functions. The marriage ceremonies start with the Engagement ceremony and then the ‘Lagna Patrika’ ceremony – when an auspicious date for the wedding is decided and marriage invitations are written by the Purohit and exchanged between the families of the bride and bridegroom. Sometime after these two ceremonies, the houses of these two families are White washed and now of course Color washed. Starting from this time until all the traditional wedding ceremonies are completed that is Upanayanam, Pellikoduku/Pellikuthuru ceremony, Marriage ceremony, Sri Sathyanaryanaswamy Vratham, Reception, Saare, Sravanapatti and Padhaharu rojula panduga, non-vegetarian food is not consumed. And at all these wedding ceremonies sweets of different variety, both traditional and modern are served. In local Urdu, Kaara is the opposite of Sweets and Dawath is a Feast. So to the delight of all relatives and friends orthodox traditions are kept aside after the completion of marriage ceremonies and a Feast of Hot and Spicy non-vegetarian dishes is hosted by both the families.