Left at the altar - alone and drunk. That was the fate of two grooms in normally patriarchal Bihar when their would-have-been brides and their families walked out on them because they were simply too sozzled.
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While one incident took place in Rohtas district's Khaira village, the other was in Aurangabad's Judahi village.
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Savita Kumari from Khaira called off the wedding when she found her groom sloshed to the gills, minutes before the ceremony Sunday night.u00a0
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Dressed in traditional red finery, the plucky woman, in her 20s, was informed by her friends that the groom was drunk and refused to marry him.u00a0
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"I decided not to marry a man who is drunk ahead of wedding. That was an indicator that he was not a responsible man and unfit for me," she said.
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She found full backing from her relatives, family sources said.
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"She refused to marry the man who was drunk. I did not force her to marry against her wishes," her father Devender Ram said.
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He approached the police but was advised not to do anything about it. "Police have no role if a woman refuses to marry a drunk groom," a local police official said.
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In the second case the same night, Lalan Singh took an equally courageous stand when he took the call not to get his daughter married to a drunk and asked the 'baraat' to return.
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"The drunk groom was exposed when he came to our house. He was so drunk that he assaulted some people and threw chairs at women during the pre-wedding rituals," Lalan Singh was quoted as saying.u00a0
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The groom's father Balram Singh said his son's friends had mixed alcohol in his cold drinks, but Lalan Singh would have none of it.u00a0
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"I was adamant not to marry my daughter to a man who was drunk on his wedding night," Lalan Singh said, recalling how he asked them to go back.
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The families of two brides represent a welcome trend in Bihar, where such stories were virtually unheard of till a few years ago.u00a0
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The pattern in large swathes of the state, particularly in the villages, was and still is, the bride being spurned for reasons such as insufficient dowry.u00a0
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