Twenty-one Indian couples with disabilities tied the knot in a mass wedding organised by an Udaipur-based organisation, reported the Statesman.
One of the newlywed brides, Sant Kumari, 24, who has had Polio since birth, met her husband, Manoj Kumar, during therapy and vocational training at Narayan Seva Sansthan (NSS).
“It is a stigma to be a girl child who is born with Polio. It has been very difficult for me to live a normal life. Life has been a roller coaster ride for me and finding a job as well as a good partner are two most important things but I met Manoj here and both of us felt that we can live our life together so our families fixed the marriage,” said Kumari.
“I work at a company in Gujarat at present and both of us will live happily because I have a job and she has acquired training in stitching. She wants to establish her own start-up and I hope that it will be successful,” the 28-year-old groom said.
The wedding ceremony was performed with traditional rituals at the NSS location in Udaipur, in front of friends and families.
“Finding a companion as per expectations becomes more challenging when it comes to people with disabilities but here they find matches and start a new life together. In the 36th mass wedding, 21 couples tied the knot and most of them met each other here. They are from different states including Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh,” said Prashant Agrawal, President of the NSS.
He said the wedding was part of the organisations’s program titled “Say No to Dowry”.
Over the 19 years of running this program, 2,109 couples have been married during the mass wedding ceremony.
NSS provides therapy and skills training to people with disabilities, free of charge.
