The story of the Kashmiri dejhor
What’s in a Earring? An Entire Culture.
“If we are going to live with our deepest differences, then we must learn about one another.” — Unknown
Marriage is one of the sure-shot ways to go about it.
I have been a Kashmiri daughter-in-law, or koshur nosh, as Kashmiris would say, since I got married in 2016. While many traditions pertaining to pujas and festivals are similar to other Hindu practices, some rituals are different from how they are practised back home in Assam, while some are completely new to me. I have found the Kashmiri rituals as intriguing as my husband has found the Assamese ones, with both of us trying our best to imbibe as much as we can from each other’s culture.
I have had my family and friends ask me many a times about my experience, about the Kashmiri rituals, food, and, of course, about the most striking feature of my Kashmiri identity: the dejhor (ear ornament).
I believe knowledge is best gathered when shared. So, I will try and explain the various rituals that distinguishes Kashmiri culture and way of life as I have understood them. I will talk about the food, the ceremonies, the beliefs etc. All with the intent of helping my folks and friends learn about the Kashmiri Pandit community beyond the insurgency-driven narrative of 1989.
And I will begin with the dejhor.
Perfect mix of grace and style
The dejhor has always fascinated me, long before I got married to a Kashmiri Pandit. For me, it is a beautiful amalgamation of two unique cultures. But it does more than that. It also brings out the beauty of co-existence and plural identities.
I am often asked by curious people, who see the dejhor dangling from my ears or tucked in my hair, if I am a Kashmiri. I reply with neither a yes nor no. My response, always, is the same: “I am from Assam married to a Kashmiri,” and flash them my most beautiful smile :)
I think it’s important to assert your identity, to radiate the beauty of the place from where you have come, but it’s equally important to show that you are capable, and willing, to embrace another culture and all its glories and shortcomings with grace and without apprehensions.
There have been a couple of times when I was approached by young girls in the metro and in my office asking what is the beautiful chain I am wearing in my ears. Many also asked, “From where can I buy it? I, too, want to wear one.” I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle and explain that it’s worn only by married women.
On multiple other occasions, I have dressed in a traditional Assamese mekhela sador, with the dejhor intact, and I have seen people who know a bit about both Assamese and Kashmiri cultures react in both wonder and surprise: “Wow, she’s wearing a mekhela sador, so she must be Assamese, but hey, she also has that chain dangling from her ears that married Kashmiri women wear. So where’s she from, really?”
They don’t speak out loud, but it’s almost as if I can read their thoughts, and I smile.
The dejhor might come off as a fancy piece of jewellery for non-Kashmiris, but for a married Kashmiri Pandit woman, or a non-Kashmiri married to one, the dejhor is sacred and testifies a timeless practice that differentiates Kashmiri women from the rest in the country.
Not your regular earring
A dejhor is as special to a Kashmiri Pandit (KP) girl as probably chura would be to a Punjabi bride.
Dejhor is a hexagonal-shaped gold locket, with a dot at the centre. It is believed to be a yantra, symbolising the union of Shiv-Shakti, with the dot at the centre representing “fixity of purpose”.
The dejhor is gifted to a KP bride by her parents and is worn a day before the wedding, in a ceremony called devgon (similar to the nau purukh sardho, or ancestor worship, by the Assamese). The dejhor is attached to a long gold chain (ath) that is presented to the bride by her in-laws when she goes to the groom’s family after the wedding ceremony is over. The athoor is a gold ornament suspended at the end of the dejhor. In ancient times, Kashmiri women wore athoor made of gold or silver threads. The ath-athoor and dejhor aren’t complete without one another. The ornament, therefore, signifies the union of two hearts as well as two families.
Before the wedding actually takes place, the bride attaches the dejhor to a long, red thread, which is suspended in the inner ear cartilage. Yup! You read it right. The bride needs to get her ears pierced. And mind you, I ain’t talking about ear lobes. I am talking about the hard cartilage in the inside of the ear. Ouch! That must be painful, you might think. Well, it definitely is to some extent, but it’s sure not an I-will-die-in-pain scenario.
As the dejhor is an intrinsic ornament of a Kashmiri wedding, KP girls usually get their ears pierced when they are young, so that by the time they are ready to wear the dejhor, their ear hole is big enough to let the chain pass through. My mother-in-law tells me she got hers pierced, along with her two sisters, when they were quite young. I, on the other hand, got mine pierced four months before the wedding because obviously, I had no clue when I was young that I would end up marrying a Kashmiri Pandit! 😊 Luckily for me, I didn’t feel much pain and there was no infection; God bless the expert at the jewellery shop who did the job (I got mine pierced at Siloffer in GK I M Block Market in Delhi).
Prepping my ears for the job
From the day I got my ears pierced till the day of our wedding, I wore a stud in my inner ear to prevent the hole from closing. On the morning of our wedding day, I had to wear the dejhor in the red thread until I exchanged the wedding vows. But because it had only been four months since my piercing, even the red thread wouldn’t go through my cartilage. This thread, mind you, had to be a bit thick to be able to hold the weight of the dejhor, which is pure gold. But my mother-in-law had a solution ready. She suggested that I tie the thread to a small gold ring (bali) instead that I can actually wear in my inner ear. The picture below will give you a better idea. This was easier and less painful.
Later, after the wedding was solemnised and I went to the hotel (where the groom’s family was staying), my husband’s bua (paternal aunt) removed the thread from my ears and replaced it with a long gold chain, which was equally heavy (phew!). This act symbolised the union of both our families as the dejhor gifted by my parents merged with the ath gifted by my husband’s. I applied the same strategy to hold the chain in place — pass it through the ring instead of the ear lobe directly.
I continued to wear the gold ath for at least two-three months after our wedding, taking it off and replacing it again with the stud briefly during our honeymoon, as I considered it too risky to be travelling with so much gold dangling from my ears.
Evolution of the dejhor
Just like anything else we wear, the dejhor, too, has undergone many changes in design with time. The traditional dejhor was always hexagonal in shape, while the ath was long enough to reach the breast of the woman. But in a modern society, this is no longer practical. With increasing cases of chain-snatching, it does not really make sense to step out wearing so much gold. So do we give up on our culture then? No. We look for alternatives.
One such alternative is to wear a smaller-sized dejhor and a shorter ath, one that is not long enough to attract attention and short enough to be tucked behind the ears. Most women I know in my husband’s family have shorter aths. The dejhor, too, has become smaller in size. Overall, it is convenient to be worn every day and is hassle-free while combing or washing the hair.
The dejhor that I wore at the time of the wedding is kept in a bank locker back home, as it is a tad big in size. Once I removed it, I ordered a pair of smaller dejhor along with a short ath (about three inches long) for my dailywear.
After a few months, I invested in a slightly bigger dejhor and longer ath (to be honest, I got bored of wearing the same design for so many months!). And a few months later, I bought another pair of dejhor. I had customised the design for the last two. So now, I have a total of four pairs of dejhor and two aths.
The gold or silver threads making up the athoor earlier have also been replaced with colourful strands that are lighter and stylish too. These athoor are available in multiple colours that can be paired with any outfit. Some of these that come in silver and golden strands cost slightly more than the regular ones.
The athoor is worn on any special occasion, such as during puja, birthday, wedding or anniversary. In fact, the woman not only wears it for her birthday or wedding anniversary but also during her husband’s and son’s or daughter’s.
So next time you see a woman wearing a dejhor, you will know that she comes from, or has ties to, the beautiful land of Kashmir. Or better, if you see her with the athoor, just go and wish her ‘Mubarak!’ because there’s a special occasion in her home. After all, who doesn’t like blessings and good wishes? 😊
