ABSTRACT
In the initial wedding arrangements pre-1950s, because the wedding was normally held on a Saturday night, certain prenuptial ceremonies (Haldi) were performed on the night preceding the wedding which was usually a Friday night. With the shift of the wedding ceremonies to the Sunday (daytime), the prenuptial Haldi rituals could have been brought forward to the Saturday night, bur most people decided to keep the tradition of the Friday night prenuptial arrangements. This left a vacuum for the Saturday night. Wedding ceremonies among the East Indians were known 'open affairs', and villagers, friends, families and well-wishers assisted the wedding hosts with cash donations or foodstuffs. At the time when such weddings were held at nights, villagers, friends and relatives came to the assistance of the hosts and cooked and fed all the visitors. This continued through the night. When the wedding was shifted to Sunday mornings, wedding hosts kept the tradition of cooking and feeding guests during the wedding day (Sunday). However there were difficulties with concluding the cooking chores on time, especially the preparation of the roti. To resolve the problem the wedding hosts prepared some of the food items during the 'free' Saturday night. Friends and relatives were invited to keep company with the cooks as they prepared food items (mainly roti) for the next day while others prepared various tarkaries (vegetable dishes) for cooking the next day. To keep the attendees 'lively and entertained 'people told stories, jokes and danced and sang among themselves. Eventually as the Saturday night gatherings grew, dancedramas troupes and classical singers were invited to provide entertainment. As the event took on new proportions and people came not just to give company to the cooks, but to enjoy the entertainment, the Saturday night event became hugely popular and came to be referred to as the 'cooking night' (Deoraj Harrikissoon, personal interview, 22 March 2010, Princes Town). Eventually, from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s, the mike man was a popular
choice of entertainment at cooking nights, especially in the lower income groups because around that time Indian orchestras had become fashionable in the cooking night circuit but they were a lot more expensive. So what began as entertainment to keep family, friends, well-wishers and the cooks in good spirits during the cooking nights, turned out to be a major event at Indo-Trinidadian weddings (Kissoon, personal interview). Largely, the Saturday cooking night entertainment eclipsed the actual wedding day event as many people preferred to attend the cooking night because of the entertainment value. This was because of the novelty of the mike system, its loud broadcasts and its seeming beacon call to all around that something unique in the entertainment world was taking place at the wedding house. Later, Indian orchestras gradually replaced the mike man at these events, but the orchestras needed the microphones from the mike man for amplification of their singers' voices. In this way, even though the mike man was pushed into the background when the Indian orchestra provided entertainment during the cooking night, he remained a necessary ingredient. In addition, he played Indian film songs during intervals, before the orchestra commenced playing music (usually 5 to 8 p.m.) and after the orchestra completed its entertainment programme (usually after 2 a.m. Sunday morning) and during the wedding day (Kissoon).
