Marriage vows over bitumen barrel

Aizawl, Jun 18 (UNI) Place and time becomes irrelevant when a marriage is settled in heaven.

Marriage in a PWD court in presence of a junior PWD engineer as the priest was an exception but accepted by all at Serchhip in Mizoram a few days ago.

Lukhi Ram(29), a Mizoram Public Works Department(PWD) employee and his Mizo partner Zothanpuii(24) of Serchhip town had crossed all barriers to tie the nuptial knot under a makeshift PWD court, where alkatra (bitumen) barrels served as an altar.

The marriage ceremony which took place at Serchhip before a labourers' camp a few days ago, was short and simple with the junior engineer Lalsangliana Sailo administering the oath, followed by a few lines from "Dil Dil Dil Dewana" from the witnesses.

Lukhi Ram seriously repeated the "priest's" words as he said, ''Lukhi Ram will always love Zonunmawii, and no landslide or roadblocks will take me away from my love. As long as the smoke of alkatra goes up, I will never forsake her.'' Neither was Zothanmawii, a daily labourer in the same department, joking when she said, ''I take him as my husband and will always love him. I will always be faithful to him even if he changed stations.'' '' Since the bridegroom was a devoted Hindu and the bride a Christian, marriage under either Hindu or Christian law was next to impossible. They had no money or time to marry in the court of law.

Their only choice was the PWD law,'' a friend of Lukhi Ram said.

He added that such marriage under the PWD law had taken place once in Mamit town.

The whole ceremony was videographed by PWD Serchhip sub-division EE N Chhelai.

The ceremony was concluded with the bride and the groom exchanging garlands made of bamboo flowers.

UNI