Marrying in Aug-Oct? Don't

Delhi weddings between August and October are faced with a strange predicament — the Commonwealth Games. With Delhi Police taking over 50 community centres — all in prime south, central, west and east Delhi locations — there's not enough venues left to hold the functions. Neelam Pandey reports.

Delhi weddings between August and October are faced with a strange predicament — the Commonwealth Games.

HT Image

With Delhi Police taking over 50 community centres — all in prime south, central, west and east Delhi locations —
there's not enough venues left to hold the functions.

"The community centres have been given out from August 20 to October 20 (to house Central paramilitary forces)," Deep Mathur, Municipal Corporation of Delhi's Director, press and information said.

"Bookings for weddings and social functions have been suspended for the period."

Call it cosmological irony: the August-October period also offers the maximum auspicious days in the year. There are more than 25 auspicious days in August alone, 16 in September and nine in October.

"It's only this year we have so many auspicious days bet-ween August and October," said Brajesh Pandit who conducts Hindu marriage ceremonies.

"In October (when the Games are in progress), there are fewer auspicious days so we can have more than a hundred weddings taking place on a single day."

Delhi was already facing a crisis after the Delhi High Court banned weddings in around 675 municipal parks from January this year. The current problem may force families to look at the 50 community centres in far-flung areas of the Capital that are accepting bookings for social functions.

The other alternative could be the 60-odd farmhouses and some 100 MCD parks in the city.

"The farmhouses and banquet halls are few in number and very expensive. We were forced to postpone my sister's wedding to November," said Tushar Raina, a resident of East Delhi.

There are some 200-odd community centres run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

"Only 100 are in useable condition," Vijendra Gupta, a BJP councillor, said. Fifty will host the security personnel, the remaining are in the city's outskirts and not in the best of conditions.