Sada chidiyan da chamba (Our temporary nest of birds) is a project that explored the female narrative of Panjabi wedding folk songs in Panjab and the diaspora. This project is supported by the Creative Black Country Open Access Seed Award and is co-produced by Birmingham City University’s Professor Rajinder Dudrah as part of his research project Slanguages with Creative Multilingualism. 

The first person I asked about weddings and wedding folk songs was my mother (pictured above on her wedding day). Talking about her wedding and wedding folk songs, she said   “Marriage – I didn’t actually know what that term means but all I knew was that I wanted to fly away – I wanted to be free just like the chidiyan, which is why ‘chidiyan da chamba’ is my favourite wedding folk song.”

The sideshow above, shows the poems written in the workshop with students from Birmingham University accompanied by a photo of their mothers.

I also interacted with women who got married recently to hear their thoughts of marriage in the modern day. I spoke to Amarjit Kaur and Raman Bahia, you can see their photos and read their thoughts below.

The project did initially start with the aim of exploring the female narrative in Panjabi Wedding songs but it became more about the thoughts and inner feelings of Panjabi women towards marriage along with the folk songs.