With the marriage season in full swing in September, the frosty wind nips the skin of wedding guests who make their way into festive tents set up on the streets of Srinagar, Kashmir. The city comes alive to the beats of mehendi functions that play out in these intimate tent gatherings. The smell of mutton yakhni fills the air as guests sway to the beat of the tumbaknari (barrel-shaped clay drum) and the nout (small pot used as a percussion instrument). It is a riot of colours and music as vibrantly-clothed women display their mehendi designs while men show off their decorative headgear. There’s laughter, heady excitement, and a stream of compliments. But suddenly, there’s a hush.
The women can barely keep in their tiny squeals of excitement. The younger teens nudge each other in playful anticipation. But the excitement is not for the entrance of the bride in all her finery — but for a man dressed as one. The crowd erupts in laughter as the man clad in a jewelled maroon lehenga, a dupatta flung over his shoulder and wearing oversized earrings, sashays in. His make-up smeared beard and a faux, sequinned braid completes the getup. The man springs into a wild dance with exaggerated motions and the people gathered can’t stop laughing at the sight. Phones pop up in many hands, eager to capture the delightful, carnivalesque routine.
By day, the man soaking up the attention in the wedding tent might be a tailor or a labourer — just another ordinary person you might encounter on the street. But on mehendi night, he becomes the “comic bride.” It is a ritualised performance that plays out, with or without invitation, at weddings across the Valley.
South Asian culture is no stranger to ritualised performances that break gender norms. Among them, in Kashmir, the tradition of having a man dress as a bride to dance at the wedding, is quite a popular one. Historically, Kashmir has been a vibrant centre for the transcultural exchanges of arts, religious practices, and traditions. While it is a Muslim-majority region, the Valley has also seen Hindu, Sufi, and even Buddhist influences shape cultural traditions. Such syncretism is evident in Kashmiri marriage rituals. The figure of the comic bride is not seen as a problematic or taboo figure. Instead, it evokes joyful and warm sentiments.
Similar customs can be found in other parts of India too. In Bihar and parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, launda naach is a tradition where men masquerade as women for comedic, and, at times, sexually suggestive dancing. In Kashmir, the comic bride performer entertains guests during the musical pre-wedding functions — like the mehendi night — but does not take part in the actual nikkah, the official religious ceremony where the marriage vows are solemnised.
Performers use the full gamut of bridal cosmetics, buy or sew their own custom lehengas, don ornate bridal jewellery, and even sport bridal nail art. “[We are] not ridiculing women,” claims one performer from Sopore. “It’s about making people laugh. You become someone else for a night.” Another 31-year-old performer from Ganderbal explains, “Log kehte hain yeh tamasha hai. Magar yeh tamasha nahi, ek riwayat hai. Humari shaadiyon ka hissa hai.” (People say this is all drama. But it’s not just drama, it’s tradition; an essential part of our weddings.) The ritualised performance of men as brides reflects cultural anthropologist Victor Turner’s theory of ritual inversion and liminality. Weddings are full of liminal moments because of transitional rites. The norms and expectations of everyday social order do not apply. The comic bride, through his exaggerated feminine performance, highlights the absurdity of societal and behavioural norms around gender roles.
Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is significant here as well. Even though the man playing the bride does not outrightly challenge gender norms, by highlighting the absurdity of “normal” gender performance, he draws attention to the construction of these norms. The performance is deliberately over-the-top and the transformation, a temporary one. But it reminds viewers that normative gender roles, which most people adhere to, are the costume and script handed to them by society.
Anthropologist Dhuri Saxena expands on Butler’s analysis by highlighting the tension between comic gender performance and its deeper cultural implications. “These rituals,” she notes, “may confer negative stereotypes on women, reducing femininity to something comic.” While liminal and performative in nature, they can also reinforce the idea that womanhood is a laughable concept or inherently absurd. Such rituals, she suggests, also risks reproducing the male gaze and social control over how womanhood is publicly represented. “The intent may be [to have] fun,” she writes, “but the effect can sometimes be reductionist, turning femininity into a costume that can be donned, and womanhood into a joke.”
But, the comic bride performance seems to resonate at a much deeper level than just wedding entertainment. What is more telling is the deep emotional attachment that Kashmiri people display towards this ritualised performance, which they see as something intrinsic to their culture. “There’s always one man like this in every locality,” a wedding planner based in Srinagar tells me. “We don’t even need to hire them sometimes. They just show up, ready.” Some performers get paid, while others perform out of the sheer joy it brings them. For them, it is about the thrill of being known locally, or the attention it garners.
Adil, 29, who has played the bride in over 40 weddings, remarks, “Log haaste hai, toh khushi milti hai.” (People laugh, and that gives me happiness.) Adil’s costumes are made by a local tailor who keeps them aside for weddings in the neighbourhood. Adil also gets requests to perform in nearby villages. “People hire me to dance at weddings. They respect that.” Along with the thrill of being noticed, performers treasure the sense of belonging and being seen by the community. One performer shares, “I work as a labourer for a living. But when I dress as a bride, everyone looks at me. They smile, take pictures. It feels like I matter.” Another, who works at a butcher’s shop in Srinagar, says, “Ek din ke liye log mujhe sirf mazdoor nahi samajhte. Woh kehte hain, ‘Yeh toh humaari shaadiyon ka hero hai.’” (For a day, people don’t just see me as a labourer. They say, ‘This is the hero of our weddings.’)
While there are some disapproving voices in private, very few challenge the practice publicly. Sajad Rashid, who researched the historical and cultural contexts of performances that follow Islamic tenets for his PhD, says, “I don’t believe there is any concern ethically or religiously if it fulfills the conditions of libaas (clothing). Such performances have a cultural basis, one that is embedded in our Kashmiri culture. [The comic bride] depicts the pluralistic nature of our society.”
Other scholars have noted that Islamic customs regarding clothing have their differences based on geography and time. Some Sufi orders used the symbolism of the bride as a metaphor to express the male mystic’s soul longing for and surrender to God, who is referred to as the groom or the husband. Poetry or songs that use such metaphors refer to spiritual states, not gender. This type of language has coloured the artistic and devotional expressions at Sufi funerals and ritual performances. A young male from Ganderbal remarks on how he once performed at a wedding in a very religious household, but, “even there, no one objected.” The 76-year-old Mumtaz Begum from Srinagar says, “Ye chu proan riwaj akh, Ath wesch wumer akh gasaan.” (This is an old tradition. It has been happening since ages.)
There is also historical evidence suggesting that such gender play in India has existed in the context of nuptials for some time. For instance, launda naach can be traced back to the 11th century in the Bhojpuri regions where women were not allowed to perform in male gatherings in colonial India. North Indian folk songs at weddings through gender reversals and teasing offer insight into the sociopolitical dynamics, familial structures, and sexuality, especially in the context of marriage. By upending the norm, such performances allow for structured disorder and temporary upheaval to unfold, both as a form of catharsis, and as commentary. Due to its multilayered socio-cultural history, Kashmir has always been home to such creative expressions. Kashmiri scholar and historian PNK Bamzai notes that even in the 20th century, some forms of shared community ceremonies that saw the intermingling of different cultural traditions allowed rituals involving humorous, hybrid, and participatory routines, like the comic bride performance.
But, these routines are in no way uniform, allowing for personal preferences of the performers. Some men dress only partially as brides, while others go all out, wearing bangles, anklets, and bridal churas, and even hair extensions. They dance to Bollywood songs, enacting tropes — from pretending to be the shy, nervous bride to an unwilling one who is rude to the groom’s family. Regardless, the man playing the bride doesn’t lose his “masculinity” by performing. It is understood that the man is merely “acting” as the bride, but does not, in any way, identify as a woman. The feminine montage lasts only as long as the music does. After the guests disperse and the festivities end, the men return to being carpenters, butchers, labourers, and drivers. The bridal ensemble goes back into the closet till the next wedding season.
Such traditions complicate our understanding of gender, ritual, and identity. They show that gender is not just about biology but also about performance, space, and contextual identity. As Butler writes, gender performance can never express a stable identity; it only creates the illusion of one. In that sense, the Kashmiri comic bride is not simply a wedding entertainer. He is a reminder of the masks we wear, the roles we play, and the spaces — however brief — where we can become someone else.
Parsa Tariq is a researcher and writer covering culture, law, and politics. She explores how traditions, identities, and social systems intersect, conducting field research, interviews, and legal analysis for deeper insights.
