ਜਾਗੋ

Jaago (ਜਾਗੋ), pronounced jaa-go, literally means wake up in Punjabi, and it is also the name of the lively night procession held before a Punjabi wedding. It is a feminine noun for the ceremony. Families carry a lit, decorated pot through the neighbourhood, singing and dancing to announce the wedding.

Meaning

The name is the whole idea in one word: wake up. Wedding guides explain that in the days before printed invitations, relatives went around the village on the night before the wedding, singing and dancing as an open invitation for everyone to come. The call of jaago told the neighbourhood two things at once: there is a wedding in this house, and nobody is meant to sleep through it. The word is also written jago or jaggo in English, but jaago matches the Punjabi sound most closely.

What happens at a jaago?

At a jaago, the women of the family carry a decorated copper or brass vessel, called a khadaa or ghaggar, with small clay lamps lit inside it or around its rim. The bride or groom's maternal aunt, the mami, traditionally carries it on her head, and another woman shakes a long stick strung with bells. The group moves from house to house, is welcomed with sweets and drinks, dances at each stop, and moves on. Boliyan, the short teasing folk couplets, get louder and cheekier as the night goes on.

When is jaago held?

Jaago is held in the last hours of the night before the wedding day, and some families hold it one or two nights before. It belongs to the mayian evenings at the couple's parental homes, and it can be held at the bride's home, the groom's home, or both. There is no priest and no fixed order to follow: the noise, the light and the visiting are the ceremony.

Is jaago held for the bride or the groom?

Both. Each side holds its own jaago at its own home, led by that side's maternal family, and diaspora families in Canada, Britain and elsewhere keep the custom in banquet halls, driveways and back gardens. The setting changes, but the job stays the same: make enough joyful noise that the whole neighbourhood knows a wedding is coming.