The document discusses the cultural representation of marriage customs and traditions in the novel Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali. It explores how the novel portrays in detail the preparations, ceremonies, and rituals involved in an engagement and wedding in a Muslim colonized society. It also discusses Frantz Fanon's theory of how colonization destroys a culture and leads to hybridity. The document examines why Ahmed Ali focused on accurately representing the culture, as a postcolonial response to misrepresentation after colonization.

1. Marriage Culture and
Other Customs
Twilight in Delhi
Ahmed Ali
Instructor: Bibi Halima
Bibi.halima@uow.edu.pk

2. Part II
In the worldthereis loveand beauty,
But thereis onlyblamefor me:
Alongwiththe riversI weepand cry
The Desertsare dreary, deadand dry
Mir Taqi Mir
Aalam Aalam Ishq-o-Junoo'n Hai, Dunya Dunya Tohmat Hai,
Dariya Dariya Rota Hoo'n Main, Sehra Sehra Wehshat Hai

3. Preparations
1. Distant guests begin to arrive weeks ago
2. Neighborhood cooperate a lot and their
houses are used to keep guests packed
3. House from neighborhood is borrowed for
cooking food
4. One man is put in charge of kitchen who
serve and deal with all foods (like Sharfullah
is given charge)

4. Preparations
5. Separate setting for zenana and mardana
6. Bari is prepared and kept in wooden trunks
which is later sent to Bride
7. Women recall their own time and criticize

5. Preparations
(Dresses and jewellery sent for Bilqueece)
Three days before wedding Bride’s dress and
other things were sent to Bilqeece’s house
which include following:
Seven suits of clothes, embroided, tucked and strewn over with
fluffy rice
Jewellery ornaments of gold and silver
Presents for Bilqeece’s parents and other nearby relatives
Rose water, scents, attars, henna, sandal, herbs
Dried fruits, copra and crystallized sugar in trays
All this is carried by Chamaris on their heads

6. Preparations
(Dresses and jewellery sent for Bilqueece)
• This Bari was sent by Asghar’s female
relatives who presented a purse to Bilqeece
containing one hundred and one rupees
(Salami)
• All this is accompanied with song singing by
Domnis
• They came back at night after nine o’clock

7. Preparations
(Gifts sent for Asghar by Bride’s side)
• Bride’s people also sent some gifts for groom
which include:
Bath things (shampoo, perfume, powder etc.)
Wooden bath stool for groom to sit during mayun
Soap and soap case

8. Engagement Ceremony
• Bride’s people came in the morning
• The male party include cousins and old men
• Baddhi for Groom
• Asghar feeling shy and covering his face
behind a handkerchief
• Eldest person is asked to put the ring on
Asghar’s finger
• Salami for groom (110 rupees)

9. Engagement Ceremony
• Groom is given paan and sugar to eat
• Guests are given sherbet
• Practical jokes
Mir Ejaz Hussain is maltreated
Dilchain’s get up as a man
• Jokes gave rise to rage and fights

10. Engagement Ceremony
• Groom is made to sit on bath stool and
putting pindis in hands customs get started by
parents later continued by relatives
• Neg Custom by sisters and cousins
• Filling Hands with Money custom (335)
• Ubatna Custom
• It ended with a lot of fun

11. Wedding Day
• Groom’s dress is given by bride’s side
(sherwani)
• Barber helps groom to get ready
• Groom rides on Horse
• Barat sets the journey with Bugles, flutes,
dhols and bands
• Horse is immediately occupied after groom
leaves it (Chunno won the competition)

12. Wedding Day
• Nikkah
Molvi is called
Groom’s willingness is asked
Haq mehr of Bride
Sweet (Bidh) is distributed among guests
Sherbet for groom and bride
Presents for all guests

13. Wedding Day
• Groom is called inside the house to get
introduced to bride
Neg is asked again
Mother-in-law receives groom
Bride wears red and green color dress and sits in
ghoongat
Mirror is keot in Quran and asked to get glimpse of each
other
• Departure (Rukhsati/Vida) happens

14. Wedding Day
• Departure (Rukhsati/Vida) happens
Domnis sing soulful songs
Everyone is in tears
Bride is kept in palanquin
Trousseau is brought with bride
• Bride’s arrival at groom’s house
Groom’s mother and sisters receive them
Water is thrown on horse feet
Bride’s feet are washed with milk
Her feet are put in silver bangles
Groom’s brothers held bride and carry her to room
Groom is asked to eat rice pudding from the palm of bride

15. Wedding Day
• Bride’s face seeing ceremony
Bride’s face is show next morning
Salami is given by all relatives
Bride goes back to her own people in the evening of next
day
Festivities end with throwing colored water

16. Twilight in Delhi
The Cultural Representation
of Muslim Colonized Society

17. What is culture?

18. What is culture?
• Culture carries the entire body of values by
which people perceive themselves and their
place in the world. How people perceive
themselves affects how they look at their
culture, at their politics and social system
• People of old values like Mir Nihal and other
elderly people in the novel regard their own
values and resist the hybridity whereas, Young
people like Asghar tend to negate their own
culture and adopt someone else’s culture

19. Frantz Fanon: Theory of
Post-colonialism
Colonization tends to destroy a nation’s culture.

20. Frantz Fanon: Theory of
Post-colonialism

21. NEO-Colonialism

22. WHY Ahmed Ali went for cultural
representation?
• It was necessary to portray in its true essence for
Misrepresentation and Misperception stated after
colonization
• Modern novel is a realistic delineation of life and so
is the Twilight in Delhi
• Author wanted to portray the difference between
colonizers and colonized
• The novel is the voice from the heart of prey not of
hunter
• This is postcolonial literature which is engaged in
the act of decolonizing the mind
• This is an outcry by heart-broken Muslim writer for

23. • This is the voice of the author who wrote back
to Empire (Appropriation of language)
• Ahmed Ali wrote to appropriate English as a medium for “self-
expression” to convey a message in a language that is not his
own and hence the phenomenon is well familiar and
associated with writers of colonized nations, “third worldists”