Sehra in Poetry
In South Asian Muslim traditions, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Hyderabad (Deccan), there is a social ritual where the sisters of the groom sing a Sehra, a poem in praise of the groom and pray to God for his future wedded life. The groom follows this by giving cash to his sisters.
It is a genre of Urdu poetry, though there are no specifications for a Sehra except that it should rhyme and be of the same meter. Sehras are generally written by individuals praising their brothers, so they are very varied in style and nature. A good sehra appears in the Urdu film, Razia Sultana; however, this particular sehra was sung by males, quite contrary to the current tradition.
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Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words: the most primitive nations have poetry, but only quite well developed civilizations can produce good prose. So don’t think of poetry as a perverse and unnatural way of distorting ordinary prose statements: prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you’ll see what I mean.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)