34 couples tie knot at mass wedding in Silchar

From Our Correspondent

Silchar, Feb 5: 34 couples have tied their nuptial knots in a mass wedding ceremony or ‘ga-bibaha’ organized by the Silchar chapter of Lions Club and Lioness Club, at Normal School ground, opposite Lions Eye Hospital at Park Road, here today. It was the 13th edition of such mass wedding, a sigture project of Lions Club of this town which earned laurels from the civil society. The couples tied the knot amid Vedic hymns and other rituals. There were five marriage bowers for the couples to take the seven sacred steps. Among these 34 couples, one was a Manipuri-Muslim couple, Abdul Hekim and jima Begum. Each couple was accompanied by 10 persons.

Different social organizations and some individuals also offer either some items or fincial help to the couples who are from fincially weaker section of the society. Tea sets, umbrellas and cash as gifts were given to the couples. Lions Club has been organizing such mass marriage ceremony since 2004 with an objective to extend help to the people belonging to fincially weaker sections of the society. Till date, more than 300 couples have been a part of a ceremony of this kind. Last year, 31 couples tied their knots at a similar mass wedding ceremony organized by the Club. After all the ceremony, a cultural show for the newly wed couples was held for their entertainment.

Renowned artistes of Barak Valley, Bidhan Laskar and Manjushree Das, kept the audiences spellbound. Artistes from Bangladesh and Nepal participated enthralled the audiences. The organizers distributed prizes to students who took part in various competitions, last year. The programme also included sumptuous feast for more than 750 persons. The daylong programme was live telecast by a local television channel, Barak Television Network (BTN). Among others, present on the occasion, included, the members of Lions Club of Silchar Central and Lioness Club of Silchar Central, Dilip Kumar Kar, president, Prabashish Roy, secretary, Amar th Khandelwal, MJF, project chairman, Ipshita Dutta, president and Rita Chakraborty, secretary.