The mother realizes that the daughter is leaving the home and going to start a new family. Although it's not necessarily a "goodbye", it certainly is an end of a beautiful chapter. This realization makes her cry. The father and the rest of the family cry too.

brides-crying-at-the-time-of-vidaai-letsdiskuss (Courtesy: Pinterest)

Is it not natural for the bride to cry seeing her mum-dad in that emotional state? Vidaai is the time it genuinely dawns on the bride that she's leaving her home where she spent her entire childhood and created so many memories. She would naturally cry, don't you think?

Take it this way... if you have seen death in your family, you would understand this well. You know a person is going to die when she/he gets older. However, that fact doesn't really make you cry until the time when she/he really dies. (Right?) You see that face lifeless, and you automatically have a breakdown.

Similarly, at the time of vidaai, everyone knows that the bride will leave her everything to start afresh. But emotions erupt at the very moment when she's in the car, actually leaving. All the past memories flash before her (and family's) eyes. And so comes the tears. A lot of it.

This is why Indian brides cry at the time of vidaai.

brides-crying-at-the-time-of-vidaai-letsdiskuss

(Courtesy: Nishant Ratnakar)

However, that being said, there's also another face of it.

Yes, you are right in saying that crying at the time of vidaai comes "necessary" and essential. If the bride doesn't cry, the society talks...

• She must not like her family.

• She wasn't close to her mother.

• It's a love marriage. (And God forbid!)

• She is so bad mannered.

Interestingly though, very recently, a Bengali bride made the headlines for refusing to cry at the time of vidaai. The surfaced video was trending on social media, which itself shows just how unique it is in India for brides to choose not to cry.

Here's that video:

I hope this answers your question why Indian brides cry at the time of vidaai.