Rajputi jewellery: Rajputi bridal 'chooda' / 'choora' / 'chura'

The 'choora' / 'chooda' ceremony is an integral part of many weddings, esp north Indian weddings. Bollywood and popular culture has made the bridal chooda more popular than ever. A suhaag chooda or bridal chooda is a set of ceremonial bangles worn by a bride. Punjabi brides wear red and white bangles as shown below.

Punjabi bride Esha Deol wearing red white ceremonial bangles or punjabi chura

[Source; Wikimedia Commons]

Rajputi Chooda Rajput women traditionally wore only ivory chooda. I have rarely come across a Rajput bride wearing red bangles with the white ivory chooda. Take a look at the picture below where a Rajput bride is wearing white chura with gold bangadi and paunchi. There are no red bangles. However, it must be noted that there is no rule against wearing red bangles with the traditional chura and women wear all kinds of churas these days although pure white chooda continues to be the most popular chooda among Rajputs. 

Rajput woman wearing white chooda, a bangadi and paunchi on her wedding 

White ivory bangles of Rajasthan White ivory bangles were traditionally worn on the entire hand i.e. on the arm as well. White bangles were popular all over Rajasthan and women continue to wear white plastic and lac bangles even today. Rajasthani women including Rajput women wore as many as 52 ivory bangles as a part of their wedding chooda. 

Tribal Gujarati woman wearing traditional white bangles

Source; Wikimedia Commons

Owing to government prohibition on ivory, women wear chura made of either white or orange or multicolored plastic thick bangles. White plastic bangles with nakkashi are also worn. These days names of the bride and groom are also engraved on the chura.

White Rajputi chura: In many traditional families,bangles are worn only before the chura ceremony. They are removed when the white chura is worn but it is not mandatory to do so.