KARACHI: There were trumpets and drums playing to welcome the couples as bus after bus with the wedding parties pulled up inside the Railway Ground for the combined Hindu marriages ceremony organised by the Pakistan Hindu Council on Sunday.

The colourful ceremony was the 16th of its kind organised by the Pakistan Hindu Council. This year 65 Hindu couples arrived from different parts of Sindh including Dadu, Umerkot, Sanghar, Sukkur, Matiari, Hyderabad, etc, to tie the knot in the presence of hundreds of Hindu families, dignitaries and members of the civil society.

The patron-in-chief of Pakistan Hindu Council, MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, who has been organising these mass weddings for so many years now, said that they had so far wed over 1,500 couples. “Many of them have been planning to get married for over a year or months but have been unable to save up for it. That’s where we come in to help them start a new life,” he said.

MPA Mangla Sharma informed that they present each newly-married couple with some cash, a silver jewellery set, a gold mangalsutra locket along with home goods such as washing machine, LED television, iron, juicer blender, dinner set, pots and pans, table fan, quilt, wall clock and a copy of the Bhagavad Geeta.

“We don’t want them to feel that hailing from a poor home they are lacking in any way,” she said.

Still, there was Raichand from Sanghar tying the knot with Shanti who said that he was grateful for the gifts but he had no place to keep them. “My home was destroyed in last year’s floods. My entire family lives under the open sky,” he told Dawn.

“Asked why he thought of getting married at such a bad phase of life, he shrugged and said: “I had been engaged for a while to Shanti so I thought of availing this option at least. Now I’ll go back to Sanghar and rebuild my home. Shanti will bring her own good fortune with her. It is a new year. A new start,” he smiled while looking at his new bride.

The Hindu mass wedding always requires one model couple selected from all the other couples to come up on the stage and perform the rituals while following the instructions of the respected pujari ji, who happened to be Mahraj Jai Kumar this time.

This year’s model couple were Natwarlal and Dhanwanti. Natwarlal told Dawn that he hailed from Karachi only and that he had been engaged to Dhanwanti for one year now. “I am not a rich man. I work in a bank as a peon. The gifts and all the love and blessings

showered upon us at this mass wedding will go a long way in starting our new life,“ he said.

Published in Dawn, january 9th, 2023