Love in the time of riots, turmoil
Dressed in a burnt orange saree, Sowmya seemed like a traditional blushing bride, though her cheeks could have coloured because of the long walk from the border at Athibelli. But then, the presence of her groom Renjith by her side and a motley wedding party could have also made her coy. The young couple were on their way to Tiruvannamalai temple to be married.
Originally from Tiruvannamalai, the families of the bride and the groom had long settled in Bengaluru. And hence, Bengaluru was the natural choice to host their wedding, until of course, the events of the past week took everyone by surprise.
As protests erupted in Bengaluru, the booked wedding hall was cancelled on fears that the relatives from Thiruvannamalai would never make it, said a male relative. So, Sowmya and Renjith decided to walk the distance in search of an audience for their wedding.
As far as Prema, another bride from across the border, was concerned, it was a case of a marriage plan cut to size. From an original guest list comprising 600-odd people, her wedding party was whittled down to a modest group of about 20 people, all of whom crossed over the Athibelli border of Karnataka into that buffer stretch leading up to Jujuvadi post of Tamil Nadu.
For, she had taken an auto, a bus, and when stranded with no means of commute, she and her family walked a few kilometers to get to the border and across.
They will have to reach Vaaniyambadi in time for the wedding on Wednesday. This young woman also had a word of advice to the two warring States: “We are all Indians at the end of the day.”
Along the steady trickling of commuters, another young woman, reportedly also a bride, walked past. Obviously, it’s raining marriages here even amidst a general drought of bonhomie between the two neighbouring States.
