21 underprivileged couples with disabilities get married in mass wedding ceremony

PTI, Sep 11, 2021, 7:24 PM IST

Udaipur: Twenty-one couples tied the nuptial knot during a mass wedding organised for differently-abled and underprivileged people by an Udaipur-based organisation here Saturday.

Most couples met during the course of treatment or skill development at Narayan Seva Sansthan. Their family members and relatives fixed the relationship and 21 couples entered the wedlock at the mass marriage ceremony.

One of the newlywed brides, Sant Kumari (24), who has Polio since birth, said she met her husband, Manoj Kumar, during treatment and vocational training.

“It is a stigma to be a girl child who is born with Polio. It has been very difficult for me to live a normal life. Life has been a roller coaster ride for me and finding a job as well as a good partner are two most important things but I met Manoj here and both of us felt that we can live our life together so our families fixed the marriage,” she said.

Twenty-eight-year-old Manoj was operated at Sansthan for a disability.

“I work at a company in Gujarat at present and both of us will live happily because I have a job and she has acquired training in stitching. She wants to establish her own start-up and I hope that it will be successful,” he said.

The wedding ceremony was performed with traditional rituals at the NSS campus in Udaipur in the presence of families, relatives and other guests.

“Finding a companion as per expectations becomes more challenging when it comes to the differently-abled and underprivileged but here they find matches and start a new life together. In the 36th mass wedding, 21 couples tied the knot and most of them met each other here. They are from different states including Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh,” said Prashant Agrawal, President of the Narayan Seva Sansthan.

He said the wedding was held with the 19-year-old flagship campaign of the organisation – “Say No to Dowry”.

Agrawal said free treatment and skill training to disabled people are provided by the organisation. Over the years, 2,109 couples have been married during the mass wedding ceremony.