Desperate Haryana grooms resort to importing brides

BEST BUY BRIDES: Srija, originally from Kerala, was married 2 years ago and now speaks perfect Haryanvi.

    

Ads by Google

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

• Female foeticide could lead to sexual violence: UN

• Fair sex, unfair deal: Govt admits foeticide laws lax

• '10 lakh girls missing from Indian population'

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

  

New Delhi: For the men in Haryana, chickens have come home to roost. It is marriage time and brides are in short supply. There are just no eligible girls in Haryana. The only option is to bring in brides from far away.

Asha Malik from Orissa is one such faraway bride.

“Waha pe shaadi ke liye paise mangte hai. 50-60,000 mangte hai. Wahan toh gareebi thi na, paise kaha se latey (Back home they ask for 50-60,000 rupees as dowry. How could we afford that)? “ Asha says.

For Asha marrying in Haryana was her only escape from the poorer Orissa.

“Gareeb ki shaadi nahi hoti yahan isileye toh who doosre desh main shaadi karte hain. Yahan pe zada ladka hai isiliye woh Bihar aur UP main shaadi karte hain (The poor find it hard to marry here. There are more men here. So they have to go to Bihar and UP to finds brides),” Asha adds.

The poor, landless and labourers are now traveling more than three thousand kilometers from Karnal to Kannur in Kerela in search of a suitable bride.Like Srija, who married Bhirbal Singh of Sorkhi village two years ago. This Kerala girl now speaks perfect Haryanvi.

“Mere gaon ki ek ladki hai, usse saat saal ho gaye aaye. Woh jab aayi toh usne kaha ki tera Haryana mein shaadi karvaungi. Woj mera photo le kar aayi aur inhe de diya aur unka photo mere paas bhej diya (A girl from my village had got married here seven years ago. She said she’d get me married here. So she exchanged our photographs),” Srija recalls.

Srija has not only leant to cover her head but also make that perfect roti.

“Kerala main sari pehente hain. Suit pehenne par sir par kapda nahi dalte Adat dalna pada. Pani bharne bahaar jana padta aur bahoot dikkat hoti hai (In Kerala we wear saris and we don't cover our head. It was hard to get into the habit. Here, we have to go out to fetch water. It is very difficult),” Sirja says.

She admits that her first few months here were not easy.

“Kerala ki kisi bhi ladki ko yeh pasand nahi ki bathroom bahar jaana pare. Road pe jo log yahan jaate hai woh pasand nahi (Kerala girls don’t like the fact that here the bathrooms are outside. No one wants to go in the open),” Sirja says explaining the difficulties faces by Keralite brides in Haryana.

The maximum number of outsourced brides in village Sorkhi are from Kerala. When one woman gets married into the village she works as a marriage fixer for others and the trend continues.

The first bride from Kerala arrived seven years back and now the village has more than eight brides from Kerala. Some of the marriages are as recent as two months back.

A few houses away from Srija, lives Omna, who is also from Kerala. Omna's husband works at a local bakery. He’s too poor to demand dowry or to see her horoscope. A year later Omna still manages very little conversation. She is yet another Kerala girl lost in translation.

“First I said no to the marriage, because it's too far. But Srija kept pestering me. She said people of Haryana are nice,” Omna says.

Srija explains: “Wahaan shaadi main bahoot saara sona dena hota hai. Shaadi ke samay Haryana main sona mangne ka system nahi hai (In Kerala, we give a lot of gold in marriages. In Haryana there is no such system).”

Lack of adequate dowry drives most of these women to settle for less conventional matches. But in India, the very act of giving or taking dowry happens to be illegal.

A resident of Hansi in Haryana's Rohtak district, Saroj has been married to the 37-year-old Tulsi for last two years. With so many brides like her from Kerala, today Saroj has her circle of friends complete.

Saroj says she was homesick at first but with so many Malayali girls around she feels okay.

Her husband paid Rs 20,000 to a middleman to get married to Saroj. For Tulsi, marriage meant getting help with cooking and cleaning.

“Majboori main karwani pari. Yahaan koshis bahoot ki par nahi hui. Roti sabzi banane waste hi laye hai. Nahi toh hoi nahi karna chahta hai itni door. Majboori main karni pari. 10,000 ka kharch bataya aur hum do baar ja chuke haain (I had no option. I couldn't get married here. I need somebody to cook. otherwise who wants a bride from so far away. It cost me 10,000 rupees. I had to make 2 trips),” Saroj’s husband Tulsi says.

CNN-IBN found that these marriages are rarely registered. Often the photograph of a garland ceremony is all there is.

“It will be very difficult to legally prove their marriages. For one thing, the society may or may not accept the children of such association,” says a social scientist Prem Chaudhary.

Poverty forced Pompy Bora to compromise. A graduate from Assam, Pompy married a 10th pass daily wage labourer in Haryana. When her in-laws couldn't pronounce her name. She changed it to Rani. Pompy was too poor to object.

“What can I say? It is destined. In Assamese they say happiness is where home is,” Pompy says.

Men have also been compelled to make their side of the bargain. When a bride from Kerala was out of budget for 45-year-old Ramchandra, he settled for a mentally handicapped Anita from Bihar.

A mentally handicap bride from Bihar married to a landless labourer from Haryana — a typical scenario where both are driven by poverty. The marriage was an act of desperation where a series of middlemen facilitated the arrangements. The ongoing rate is at 6,000 to 10,000 depending on the age and virginity but brides like Anita come for free.

After four years, Anita is yet to have a child.

“Is baat se pareshaan hain ki dimag mota hain, kuch kaam dhanda nahin karti, baal bache nahin hote. Is vajeh se agar bal bachhe hote toh is baat ki shanti hoti ki bachhe ho gaye (We are troubled by the fact that she is mentally handicap, can’t do any business and can’t give birth. We would have been satisfied if she could at least give birth to a child),” Ram Chander complains.

And some don't find a bride at all. Charan Singh is yet to find a match for his 40-year-old son who has been looking for a bride for the last 20 years.

But Charan Singh was able to find wives for his five other sons.

“Agar paise hote toh Bihar ya Bengal se le aate (If we had the money, we would have brought a bride from Bihar or Bengal),” Charan says.

Except that all of them are former widows or divorcees. So they were available for free.

In village Khai it takes around Rs 3,00,000 to get a daughter married and Rs 25,000 for the middleman to get a daughter in law.

Charan Singh's household with six sons and a monthly income of 3000 rupees could not afford a daughter and now cannot afford a daughter in law.