Anjaneya’s daughter to tie the knot at mass marriage

October 25, 2014 06:49 pm | Updated May 23, 2016 04:07 pm IST - Bangalore

The Karnataka government’s proposal to impose luxury tax on lavish weddings in a bid to curb them may not have seen the light of day, but Social Welfare Minister H. Anjaneya is adding his mite to the cause by holding a no-frills marriage in his own family.

His daughter, A.V. Anupama, is getting married at a mass wedding at Holalkere (his constituency) on November 19, the 97th birth anniversary of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. She will tie the knot with Shashwath S., an employee at an MNC here, with 96 other couples.

Mr. Anjaneya, who hails from a humble background, told The Hindu that he wanted to send out a message that expenses and ostentations that wedding entail were totally unnecessary. “Parents spend a month just distributing wedding cards, which is such a waste of time as well,” he said. He added that preliminary ceremonies would be held in the house in which he was born at Gandhi Nagar (a Dalit Colony) in Davangere, after which the marriage will be held at the mass event.

Ms. Anupama, a 23-year-old arts graduate from Mount Carmel College here, said the decision to marry in the mass ceremony was “mutually agreed upon” by her and her fiancé. “It is not that either of us had to be convinced,” she said, and added that she never wanted a big wedding.

Mr. Shashwath told The Hindu that the poverty and hardship he had seen around him as he grew up in Nagavedi village, near Arsikere, had made him averse to show of money power. “There used to be one bus connecting our village to the town, and many, including me, used to walk about 7 km each way to Arsikere when we missed it,” he said.

“Neither of us wants to enter politics,” clarified Mr. Shashwath. “So there is no other motive in the choice we have made, except that we do not believe in spending crores on a marriage.”

In 2009, son of Congress leader and former Minister A.H. Vishwanath too had got married at a mass wedding with more than 100 couples on the banks of the Cauvery in K.R. Nagar taluk of Mysore district.

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