The bride was flanked on both sides by portraits of Dr B R Ambedkar and Gautam Buddha

Copies of Constitution distributed at wedding

ALWAR: It was a wedding with many firsts — one that kept guests guessing. For starters, the baraat was the bride’s. And she rode on a chariot to the groom’s house. There was no priest or mahurat either, and vows solemnly sworn on the Constitution. Instead of accepting presents, the couple gave out gifts: books to set up a public library in their village. That’s not all. The wedding was plastic-free and guests went home with a copy of the Constitution and a sapling.When Ajay Jatav, who works in a private company in Hyderabad, tied the knot with Babita in Karoli village, 20 km from Alwar city, the duo turned many traditions on their head. “Ajay and I wanted to rewrite some conventions to ensure gender equality. We meant to send social messages through our marriage. I’m happy our ideas were accepted by our families and now people are talking about it. I hope we have inspired more couples to do the same,” said bride Babita, who led her baraat.Bride Babita, a 25-yearold postgraduate, led her baraat from Tuleda village in Alwar to Karoli on Monday night. The bride sat demurely on the horse carriage, but it was hard to miss the statement she was making, flanked as she was on both sides by portraits of Dr B R Ambedkar and Gautam Buddha.Many residents said it was a powerful message by a Dalit couple in a region where there have been instances of Dalits being attacked for riding horses during wedding ceremonies. In May 2019, a Dalit groom was beaten up for riding a horse in Rajasthan’s Bikaner while last year a procession was attacked in Bhilwara district for a similar reason.But this wasn’t the only point that Ajay and Babita wanted to make. At the venue, the couple swore eternal love to each other with a copy of the Constitution in their hands. Later, copies of the Constitution were also distributed to guests even as the couple made them promise they would uphold its values.The couple also gifted books worth Rs 30,000 to a library in Karoli, which has 1,000-odd households, about 125 of them belonging to Dalit families. Village sarpanch Raju Pandit said, “Ajay and Babita will also pay for maintenance of the library, which will open shortly in a government building here.” “Everything about the wedding was unique, he added.Groom Ajay said, “I wanted to do my bit for environment. No plastic was used at the wedding, food was served in steel utensils and kulhads.” The wedding invites had been printed on cloths, which could be used as handkerchiefs after washing.