Bride gets married without a groom

Photo © Dodo_anji, Flickr

Anyone who walked past Shyampur village in Orissa wouldn’t find anything unusual about the wedding celebrations held there recently.
The family dressed up in all wedding finery greeted guests warmly. Lavish arrangements were made with at least 1000 guests attending. A priest, relatives and friends of the bride made merry with full gusto. However, on closer look, you would find something amiss in the mass wedding celebration. There were two girls, beautifully turned out, but not a single groom stood there for them. For the villagers, it’s nothing unusual.
They have been celebrating this way for the last 31 years. It’s a festival called the Kumar Purnima, where young girls have a mock marriage to bless them with grooms as handsome and skilled as lord Kartik, in whose honour it is celebrated. The young girls pray to the sun and moon for marital happiness, wealth and joy. All wedding rites and rituals are performed to appease the lord and after the ceremonies are over, the go back to a regular life as unmarried girls, the way they were before.

(Based on Articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com)