Saturday, July 01, 2006
A Unique Marriage System for Getting Married
By Brij Khandelwal
Mangalore: “If marriages are fixed in heaven, the best place to solemnize them is Dharmasthala,” said a purohit after conducting a fast paced, low budget but value based marriage ceremony in one of the marriage halls overlooking the famous Manjunath Temple, 65 km. east of Mangalore.
Half a dozen kalyan mantapams are run by Bhatt Brahmins, who provide an in-house decent package of services including food to the guests for amounts ranging from Rs.2500/- to Rs.10,000/-. This includes cost of everything from garlands, puja samigri, to taped music and dholak beats. No bargaining, no hassles, it’s a time-saving, neat professional job that leaves everyone satisfied, explains a younger Bhatt. The whole family is engaged in looking after various aspects of the marriage ceremony which is their chief economic activity in this popular temple town visited daily by thousands of devotees round the year.
Preeti, 29, orphan from Mysore’s Bapu Ashram, couldn’t hold back her tears as she parted company with her ex-family members Alok Gupta, Mamta, Prof. Jennifer, Nanda, along with half a dozen couples from the same ashram, who got married in similar fashion at Dharmasthla and Sringeri Mutt. Chandra Shekhar, bride groom, is a Brahmin cook and was having difficulty in finding a girl, because educated girls in this part “are reluctant to get married to boys from the villages,” explained Prof. Jennifer of the Central Institute of Languages in Mysore.
Alok Gupta, managing trustee of the Bapu Ashram however attributed this to the imbalance in sex ratio, due to preference for male child and prevalent trend of female infanticide.
Interestingly, girls who get married to the Brahmins in this area are treated like Rani, as males do all the cooking work. Udipi cooks are famous for their culinary skills. Prof. Jennifer cited the case of one Dr. Pandurang Achar, who took time off from his academic persuits to rush to his home to cook for his wife in the afternoons.
Sadashiv Bhatt, the chief purohit who conducts upto 5 marriages a day, said those who opted for simple but elegant marriages always preferred to use our services. June 16 was a particularly auspicious day, the right muhurata for the marriages as groups of anxious family members followed the brides and the bridegrooms after a darshan of the presiding deity to join the traditional lunches with papadams, steaming sambhar and rice and coconut chutneys.
“It was in institution worth preserving and popularizing up in the north where marriages were still considered a heavy burden on the families,” commented Alok Gupta, technocrat industrialist of Mysore, who has so far been instrumental in solemnizing 21 such marriages, a record of sorts.
Mangalore: “If marriages are fixed in heaven, the best place to solemnize them is Dharmasthala,” said a purohit after conducting a fast paced, low budget but value based marriage ceremony in one of the marriage halls overlooking the famous Manjunath Temple, 65 km. east of Mangalore.
Half a dozen kalyan mantapams are run by Bhatt Brahmins, who provide an in-house decent package of services including food to the guests for amounts ranging from Rs.2500/- to Rs.10,000/-. This includes cost of everything from garlands, puja samigri, to taped music and dholak beats. No bargaining, no hassles, it’s a time-saving, neat professional job that leaves everyone satisfied, explains a younger Bhatt. The whole family is engaged in looking after various aspects of the marriage ceremony which is their chief economic activity in this popular temple town visited daily by thousands of devotees round the year.
Preeti, 29, orphan from Mysore’s Bapu Ashram, couldn’t hold back her tears as she parted company with her ex-family members Alok Gupta, Mamta, Prof. Jennifer, Nanda, along with half a dozen couples from the same ashram, who got married in similar fashion at Dharmasthla and Sringeri Mutt. Chandra Shekhar, bride groom, is a Brahmin cook and was having difficulty in finding a girl, because educated girls in this part “are reluctant to get married to boys from the villages,” explained Prof. Jennifer of the Central Institute of Languages in Mysore.
Alok Gupta, managing trustee of the Bapu Ashram however attributed this to the imbalance in sex ratio, due to preference for male child and prevalent trend of female infanticide.
Interestingly, girls who get married to the Brahmins in this area are treated like Rani, as males do all the cooking work. Udipi cooks are famous for their culinary skills. Prof. Jennifer cited the case of one Dr. Pandurang Achar, who took time off from his academic persuits to rush to his home to cook for his wife in the afternoons.
Sadashiv Bhatt, the chief purohit who conducts upto 5 marriages a day, said those who opted for simple but elegant marriages always preferred to use our services. June 16 was a particularly auspicious day, the right muhurata for the marriages as groups of anxious family members followed the brides and the bridegrooms after a darshan of the presiding deity to join the traditional lunches with papadams, steaming sambhar and rice and coconut chutneys.
“It was in institution worth preserving and popularizing up in the north where marriages were still considered a heavy burden on the families,” commented Alok Gupta, technocrat industrialist of Mysore, who has so far been instrumental in solemnizing 21 such marriages, a record of sorts.
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