How to organise your own personal mass wedding

Jaideep Hardikar Buldana
Subhash Gadekar is not your average Indian bachelor. The 29-year-old says he has always wanted to tie the knot at a mass wedding, not at some exclusive, extravagant affair. His dream is finally coming true. As his modestly decorated jeep rolls through a narrow alley in Muradpur village towards his bride’s home in Divthana, he says contentedly: “This is the best way to get married.”
Gadekar is one of the 15 young men to have found brides in Divthana, a Buldana village with 2,000 Rajputs. Every year since 1983, it has been holding mass weddings on one auspicious day of the year. Local politicians pitch in with contributions for the wedding arrangements.
Divthana is among the more prosperous villages of the district. The farmers here are better off than many of their counterparts in a region ravaged by a dramatic decline in incomes. But the idea of community weddings was mooted way back in the early 1980s.
Setting an example
“It is not that we can’t spend money on weddings,” says Shankar Rajput, the father of a groom from Yelgaon. A well-to-do farmer himself, he says that if he sets an example, others might follow. “A wedding in the family is a big tension for farmers and this is the only way we can solve the problem,” he says. Divthana, incidentally, does not accept any government funds to organise the events.
Take the instance of Shekhar Badare of Shirasgaon Korade village in Amravati district. The only son of his parents, Shekhar was anxious about getting his younger sisters married. Following two years of drought and crop failure, he was in no position to blow up money on weddings.
“This Divthana custom is an answer to huge wedding costs,” says Vishnu Ingle, a village-journalist who works as a stringer for some regional dailies. He has helped popularise his village tradition in an aim to spread the concept. “A family needs to spend at least Rs1 lakh on a wedding,” he says. “A community wedding means a small expense for families, no more than Rs7,000.”
The village wears a festive look as the barat walks through the gallis after a small collective pooja at a temple. Notwithstanding the scorching 48 degree heat, the drummers have got the guests to dance to their frantic beat. Neighbouring villagers too land up to bless the couples.
Back in her home, one of the brides is ready to walk to the venue — a school ground all decked up to host the nearly 10,000 guests attending the ceremony. Kalpana Ingle, dressed in traditional bridal-wear, is marrying Vijay Singh Salukh, a farmer from the neighbouring Andhai village. Her cousin Nanda too is getting married in the same pandal.
Kalpana’s prospective in-laws say they gladly agreed to a mass wedding. “We are proud that our son agreed too,” the groom’s father says.
At dusk, the couples sit in a row on the stage with their maternal uncles standing behind them to perform the rituals. The gathering of guests, relatives and local politicians fills up the ground.
This time around, 15 Divthana girls are entering wedlock; four boys will get married at a mass wedding ceremony in the neighbouring Kolara village the next day. In 27 years, the village has hosted 250 weddings of 250 young men: about 8-10 weddings every year.
For some it’s a tradition; but for most of the farming households, it’s a much-needed social reform.
“In 27 years, not a single family ever wanted to hold a special marriage,” says Ingle. “It’s a tradition that we strongly feel needs to be followed today.”
Community bonds
In 2003, Prabhu Ingle, a villager who works as a lab technician at a nearby town hospital, said he wanted to have a special wedding. But then the village elders talked him out of it. “I’m glad I listened,” he says.
Mass weddings also forge strong bonds among the villagers. They also give the local youth a chance to test their managerial and social skills.
First, the village temple committee which organises the weddings calculates the total expenses. Then, it factors in the donations from political and social leaders. The families of the brides and grooms also pool in. “We don’t take any money from very poor families,” says Mansingh More, the temple president.
Over a hundred volunteers divided into 10 committees work for about two months to organise the weddings. Every home contributes food grains for the wedding feast. “There are committees to serve food, to take care of decoration and so on,” says Atmaram More, chief of the organising committee.
Divthana has set a trend other neighbouring villages now follow. Kolara, Belara, Hatni, Bhalgaon, Acharwadi, Yevta, Malgi, Konad, Uttarta, Kavtha…the list of such villages is long and growing.