Bridal choices
For 28-year-old Lucknow resident Uzma Siddique, who is set to marry in December, owning and wearing a pair of silver nagras on her big day has always topped her wedding wishlist.
“My mother wore silver nagras at her wedding in 1992. So did my grandmother and so did my great-grandmother,” Siddique said. “I always imagined myself wearing them and taking my wedding photographs in them and posting them on Instagram. It was never just footwear; it was an emotion and a family tradition.”
But when she visited the market with plans to order a pair, the prices stunned her.
“A pair that cost around $156 to $208 (15,000 to 20,000 rupees) just a few years ago is now selling for nearly $673 (65,000 rupees),” she said.
Determined to have a pair, she decided to give up on other wedding luxuries instead.
“I had to cut back on many other wedding expenses. I bought a lighter lehenga (long skirt), reduced the number of suits I planned to purchase, and trimmed my budget in several places, just so I could afford these nagras.”
Despite the financial strain, she says giving up the footwear tradition was never an option.
“They have become incredibly expensive, but our emotions are attached to them. That’s why I still bought them,” she said.
But many of her friends have had to go without.
“Some had dreamed of wearing silver nagras on their wedding day, but they had to let go of that dream because they simply couldn’t afford them. They are deeply hurt by it,” she said.
Not far from Siddique’s home lives her friend, 25-year-old Safiya Khan, who is also getting married in December. Unlike Siddique, Safiya has not been able to buy silver nagras for her wedding.
From a lower middle-class family, she says soaring prices put upholding that tradition out of reach.
“My entire wedding shopping budget is around $1,250 (120,000 rupees). I simply cannot spend more than half of it on a pair of shoes,” Khan said, noting that she was sad to end the family tradition.
“I think this tradition will end with my generation,” she said. “My mother had a pair of silver nagras, but she had to sell them last year because of financial difficulties. We always believed we would buy another pair for my wedding. Had we known silver prices would rise so dramatically, we would never have sold them.”
She has been shocked by how a distant war has so negatively affected this beloved local tradition.
“I know the recent conflicts have pushed silver prices higher, but I never imagined that a war thousands of km away could take away a tradition so close to my heart,” she said. “I had always dreamed of taking my wedding photographs in silver nagras. Now that dream will never come true.”