The Culture of Henna (Mehndi)

Indian weddings are at heart of the culture here in India. Throwing a memorable wedding or “shaadi” for your grown kids is part of the duty as an adult. It’s done with careful planning, attention to detail, and with a lot of respect towards customs, astrology and traditions...not to mention, lots of love! My favourite part of the ceremonies are the henna or “mehndi” ceremonies. It’s a time when the colors of the henna plant, are bound into a paste and translated into wonderful pieces of art, usually worn on both sides of the female hand and sometimes feet. 

I'm told that Henna first entered into India, from the Middle East, with the coming of the Mogul empire around the 16th century. It is now a staple event for women shortly before a wedding. Also a number of street vendors can be found setting up shop in the big cities, around fall and spring, getting people ready for their celebrations.

Henna comes from the henna tree, and the word is dervied from the Arabic word /ħinna . The plant is considered a small tree or shrub, and grows to 2.6m high. To prepare, henna is made into a leaf paste, and mixed with a mixture of OKRA and FENNUGREEK seeds. One ingredient that distinguishes good henna from bad henna, is whether hair dye has been added or not. Hair dye, I learned, is the cheap way to strengthen the colour. However with good spices, natural is the best way, and will do the trick.

When henna is applied it is done so with respect to traditional designs and those personal to the artist. "Paislies" are one such example, which look like a stylized half of a ying/yang symbol, are a favourite pattern that is highly used.  On a bride, the initials of her husband will be inscribed secretly somewhere on the hand, for her hubby to find. The rites of henna application have a special day for application: usually two days before a wedding. That gives the henna time to dry (2hrs) and strengthen it's colour (24hrs). The process of darkening and deepening the color, is through oxidation, hence the acidity of LIME JUICE is applied shortly after the dried henna is scraped off.

Lastly cooking oil is applied to moisturize the hand and act as a sort of varnish for the color. The traditional, and now most expensive method, is to apply clove oil. But these days olive oil and other cooking oils seem popular.

...Henna is one of my favorite subjects to photograph in India :)

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