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Shorn of ‘band-baaja’, Banda wedding delivers green message
The groom and others arrived in bullock carts at the marriage venue at the bride’s village Kalinjar in Naraini tehsil on Saturday night.
It was a wedding with a difference— green, clean and minus the usual band and baaja in drought-prone Bundelkhand’s Banda district.
Although there was a baraat (wedding procession), the Dalit groom and others arrived in bullock carts at the marriage venue at the bride’s village Kalinjar in Naraini tehsil on Saturday night.
All this was in keeping with a vow made on the World Environment Day by the organisers who have been holding such weddings every year.
The marriage rituals were performed under a canopy of leaves. Soon after the wedding, the couple planted a sapling. The fact that there was no noise, air or water pollution was the icing on the cake.
While the bride Rekha Devi is the daughter of Babu Samudrey, the groom Kishen Matel is the son of Kareylal Matel. The groom belonged to Gadha-Gangapurwa village in the same tehsil, said Sumanlata Patel, the gram pradhan (village head) of Mohanpur Khalari village in Naraini.
Sumanlata, her husband Yashwant Patel (a village teacher), social activist Ashish Sagar, and a few others have been organising such green weddings around World Environment Day for the last couple of years. “This was the eleventh wedding in the series,” said Ashish Sagar.
Banda, 200 km south of the state capital Lucknow, is located in the drought-prone Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh.
The organisers and the village community known as the Kanyadaan team, led by Sumanlata, plan free and green weddings for girls. Moreover, the wedding had no DJ or power-packed sound systems. No polythene, plastic plates or cutlery was used. The food was cooked on firewood collected from fallen trees on the fringes of the village. All decorations were made of leaves and flowers.
With plastic being a no-no, all the guests sat in rows on ground for the feast and ate out of pattal-dona (leaf plates and bowls). Water and tea were served in kulhads (earthen tumblers). It was a low-cost, ostentation-free wedding organised by the ‘Kanyadaan Team’.
“We also made speeches to sensitise people about environment protection. Weddings are good occasions to send any message across to the communities. Plastic, polythene and DJs have penetrated villages as well. There are many aspects of urban life that the villagers should not follow blindly. Villages can easily organise eco-friendly celebrations and we want villagers to understand this,” said Ashish Sagar.
“There was no dearth of joy without the wedding being ostentatious,” said Sumanlata.
The last two such weddings in the district were held by Kanyadaan Team on June 26, 2018 and June 7, 2017.
