Haryana Bride Leads Her Own Baarat, Rides Horse to Groom’s House With A Sword in Hand

Challenging patriarchy and tradition, a bride named Priya, wore a sehra and rode a horse to the groom's house in Ambala, with a sword in her hand.

Ambala: It is a common tradition for Indian grooms to enter the wedding venue, riding a horse accompanied by a ‘baraat’, but in Haryana, a bride reversed gender roles and how! Challenging patriarchy and tradition, a bride named Priya, wore a sehra and rode a horse to the groom’s house in Ambala, with a sword in her hand. The bride, who is a law graduate, was accompanied in the ‘baraat’ by her father, mother and other relatives.

According to a report by NDTV, Priya’s father, Narinder Aggarwal, said that he wanted to break the myth that girls are inferior to boys. While talking to media, a beaming Priya said that she was extremely happy and this was a childhood desire come true. “I am extremely happy. This occasion usually comes in the life of boys. But in our house, my parents have raised me like a boy,” she told NDTV.

Priya also said that it was her father who encuraged her to pursue law and became an advocate.. “When I wanted to pursue law, a lot of people in my family told me that girls shouldn’t pursue law. But my dad told everybody that he will ensure that I study law and become an advocate,” she told the media.

Not just Priya, many brides are now subverting age-old norms and reversing gender roles. In a similar incident in December 2021,  Anuskha Guha, a senior air hostess with Indigo airlines, led her marriage procession on a horse with her relatives and friends following her. Clad in a white ‘lehanga’, the bride first reached the house of groom Jeet Mukharjee, a Kolkata-based business, who joined the procession in a car.

“Since childhood Anuskha would question as to why only a groom rides on mare and goes to the bride’s house. Why can’t it be the other way round? We used to tell her that these are traditions being followed from generations but could never satisfied her. She always said that she would break the tradition and do the opposite,” her mother Shusmita Guha said.