My mom said when she moved to Andhra Pradesh from Ranchi after her marriage, she couldn’t understand a word of Telugu. Since neither my dad nor my mom had any relatives here, she didn’t want to feel left out in a new state, so she tried to learn Telugu little by little and our neighbours tried to speak to her in broken Hindi as much as possible.
One day our neighbour came over and invited her to a function for their ammayi (girl). My mom said yes immediately, thinking it was her birthday party. They started conversing about the details of the birthday party, and she became growingly confused about why they would spend tens of thousands of rupees for a birthday party with quite expensive silk langa voni (half-sarees) along with a bunch of gold jewellery.
After more conversation in broken Telugu and Hindi, my mom finally understood that it was not a birthday party, rather it was a party to celebrate their daughter’s menarche (onset of menstruation) known as “Ritu Kala Samskara“, in Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu, it is known as Manjal Neeratu Vizha (literal meaning, bathing with turmeric water). In Kerala, it is commonly known as Purapadi (getting ready).
My mom, being a north Indian, was speechless. She had never heard of such a tradition. Where she came from, periods were not even talked about, much less celebrated.
Pushpati Avadam or Ritu Kala Samskara is known by many names, Half Saree Function/Saree Function/Maturity function (you can find videos of said ceremonies on YouTube as well). In simple terms, it is a celebration to mark a girl’s transition into womanhood, no matter what the age; all extended family and friends are invited, and the girl is showered with gifts. In other states, different names and rituals differ and depend on ancestral traditions.
But why is it celebrated?
Many grandmothers say it is a form of announcement. In days gone by, this was a way for informing their village, circle or community that their girl was eligible for marriage now, for she could bear kids.
Since there were no matrimonial sites, this lets people know where to look if a family needs a suitable girl for their boy. This does imply that no matter how immature the girl might be at heart if she can bear kids, she’s a woman. It places the value of a woman in her womb. Certainly, a teenager is not an adult and child marriage is flat out wrong, you and I know that. But almost all my South Indian Hindu friends have had a function like that.
Starting your periods is an extremely uncomfortable and confusing time. Where am I bleeding from? Why am I bleeding? Does everyone go through this, or is it just me? Such function like that just opens the topic up for discussion instead of having to deal with it on one’s own. But mix the confusion of having a period for the first time with all your relatives and friends arriving, and things get hectic.
It does come with upsides though; this is the time for a girl to get her first, proper silk half saree and gold jewellery of her own. Gold is beloved by Indians; this is usually when a girl gets her own vadanam, a belt made from gold worn over her half saree. These functions are sometimes even held in grand halls.
The first Ritu Kala Samskara I went to was held in a huge hall with the girl sitting on a throne wearing unholy amounts of gold jewellery under spotlights and flowers hanging from above. The family put giant flexi posters out in the town of her. A photographer comes and takes hundreds of pictures which were later compiled into a customized album. Being a kid, I initially asked my mom, “Where is her husband?” Because I assumed this was a full-blown marriage.
Nowadays, the function has lost the original meaning in urban and suburban areas. It’s no longer just to celebrate a girl’s menarche but a chance for the family to show off their wealth to their community and a new chance to network. The grander the function, the higher their economic status. The above example is not an isolated incident. Most city-dwelling family’s maturity functions usually have the same format adjusted according to their budgets and preferences. The traditions and rituals vary greatly between different castes as well.
The tables are flipped when it comes to villages and rural families. Gold and silk being limited, they still do it to the best of their abilities with the goal being, finding a suitable match for their girl to set an engagement in the future. An oral agreement of sorts since child marriage is illegal. Still, there’s a high probability that the parents have their daughter’s marriage in mind when they invite their family for the ceremony.
Except for brahmins, most upper-class families did not usually participate in such functions because they would have their pick of suitors for their daughter. But now, almost every caste participates in some ceremonial function as a rite of passage.
This divide gets smaller when we take a look at the rituals. When the girl gets her period, she is made to sit on the mat, bought by her maternal uncle, by an elder woman of the family, usually their grandmothers. It depends on the family’s rituals if they let the girl wear a pad on the first day or not. The girl is showered with rice and made to eat foods high in iron, such as jaggery and oil, turmeric balls and forbidden from eating spicy foods.
One of the first rituals decides how long the girl will sit and sleep on the mat. She sits with her back to a wall and chucks turmeric balls back at the wall. The number of turmeric balls which stick to the wall tells how long she should stay on the mat. Only in odd numbers as well, i.e., 3/5/7/9/11.
Yes, they sit and sleep continuously on that mat for those many days. My friends agree that it was a pain in their ass, literally. One of the reasons for this ritual might be because in the past, without proper menstrual products, they would bleed on the bed, thus sleeping on the mat avoided this problem altogether. This practise still continues in many households even if they use sanitary products.
In old times, chucking the balls was a way to estimate how long a girl’s periods must be. Since girls are exempted from touching anything in the common household during their periods, like clothes, utensils, cutlery, pickles, knowing the duration of her period times the number days, she must not touch anything in her home, for fear of it becoming impure and when she can resume her housework.
During those first days, many villages separate the girl from the house altogether if they can, placing her in a temporary hut for the Ritu Kala Samskara. Even in some places today in Tamil Nadu, a girl stays in the hut for 14 days during her first period where she is bathed with turmeric water over her clothes by the women of the house and then is prepared for the ceremony. In some parts of Kerala, girls stay in the huts for about 16 days, provided with iron and protein-rich foods, so the girl develops a strong body for childbirth. The ceremony takes place on the last day.
Every girl going through this is served food on separate plates and cups, which is a very stigmatized part of the ritual. Girls on their periods are looked at as impure, an outlook still prevalent today. Serving food on separate platters, not letting her touch household items and making them sleep separately on their periods every month further exacerbates this stigma. Science and I assure you that nothing bad will happen if a girl on her period touches something. She is a girl, not a witch.
One explanation for girls to not participate in the kitchen might be because of free bleeding in olden times. Previously, stoves would be placed on the ground and still are in many rural areas. Bleeding near food would be quite unhygienic. In those days, freshly ground spices and flour would be placed in high shelves so that moisture or pests do not affect it. This could be another reason why women were excluded from doing tasks in and around the house and avoid spices, to provide rest and avoid doing tough tasks during their “weakened” state.
Within the next few days, family members come and give gifts and sweets to the girl. An astrologer reads her future and analyses if she had bad luck and selects an auspicious day to conduct a homam, a prayer ritual to ward off bad luck and starting her new life as a woman anew.
On the last day of her period, neem leaves and turmeric are put in a bucket of water, and the older woman in the family pour that water over her, and the girl takes her first bath since the start of her period. Putting neem leaves and turmeric must have roots in Ayurveda because they are seen as natural antibacterials.
Just because her first period is over, doesn’t mean the stigma ends there too. Most of the girls report not knowing about periods before it happens. Even after their ceremony, many girls do not know how or why periods happen. As much as we try to rationalize these ceremonies, it makes absolutely no sense if we are performing these ceremonies with stigma, without actually talking about it. If the family and young girls are not taught about periods being perfectly natural and not “impure”, they’ll consider themselves inferior to men because of their periods.
What is the point of celebrating a girl’s menarche if we don’t promote open conversations surrounding periods? What is the point of telling the entire circle that your child has started her periods if the pads are still sold in black polythene covers? What’s the point of the function if your daughters still feel shy saying the word “periods” and still say “those days”/”red days”/”that time of the month”?
The rituals are rooted in days of old. In all the functions, no one is celebrating periods; we are celebrating a sign that now this girl can get married and have kids. As we move forward with our medical and technological advances, let’s mix our traditions with new thoughts. Let’s celebrate periods for just that, with no ulterior motives and no strings attached.