No gala feast, wedding held at residence amid curfew

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 17

It was planned to be a gala wedding. A banquet and a resort were booked – one for the shagun ceremony and the other one for the main wedding function. There was a guest list of over 400 people. Thereafter, the family planned a pilgrimage to the Gudrwara Hazoor Sahib followed by a honeymoon for the couple to Maldives.

But things did not happen the way these were planned. The wedding of Canada-based Madhurmeet Singh and Jalandhar-based Kirat Kaur was planned for April 5. As not just banquets but even gurdwaras are closed, the families decided to postpone the marriage for some weeks. Since normalcy does not seem to be returning so soon, the families finally got together and solemnised the wedding on Friday.

The parents of the couple, a priest and a professional photographer attended the marriage function. Groom’s mother Tajinder Kaur, a mathematics teacher at Government Senior Secondary School, Nehru Garden, said , “Since the gurdwara was not open, we were told by the priest to look for a house which had the Sri Guru Granth Sahib bir. The house of bride’s maternal aunt had it at their place. Since we were told to keep the assemblage minimum, aunt’s family members temporarily moved out of their house before we can go. Even the brother of the bride missed.”

Tajinder said, “Madhurmeet is our only child. Since it was the only wedding in our family, we had big plans for him. He has PR holder in Canada and has been working as an accountant with a firm there. He was to come here for marriage on March 20, but he flight was preponed to March 13. Upon his return, we remained quarantined for 14 days. Unsure of how it all would happen, we decided to postpone the marriage.”

“We thought that celebrations, parties, honeymoon and travel can happen any time later when normalcy gets restored. We must thank God for our well-being, take his blessings and go for a simple wedding. And thankfully everyone agreed,” she added.