Come November, 60 couples will be anxiously waiting for something that they scarcely believed would happen - their weddings. They’re not your regular couples, as at least one person in each couple is differently-abled or has some form of deformity. “Most of them had given up the hope that they would be married, but our forum has really given them a lot of belief,” says P Simmachandran, Secretary of the TN Handicapped Federation Charitable Trust. After a round of swayamvarams in Chennai, Madurai, Namakkal and Cuddalore a few months ago, these 60 couples were chosen to be married in a grand mass wedding. The weddings will be held at the Geetha Bhavan hall and will be blessed by Mayor Saidai Duraisamy and Minister B Valarmathi.
The group began conducting the mass wedding two years ago. There were 37 couples in the first year and 24 united last year. “We had actually received many more applications but on filtering we found that many of them were just trying to make some quick money,” says Simmachandran. Most of them had been enticed by the fact that all the couple will be given almost an entire household as well as two months worth of provisions.
Thanks to a strict scrutiny process, all those profit-seeking people were weeded out, “Some were even married men who hadn’t even been divorced already,” he adds. The couples have had three months of counselling to help them cope with fiances’ disabilities, “It is essential to know what amount of physical intimacy and ability to expect,” he says.
It is interesting that not all of the brides/grooms are disabled, as a few of them have decided to commit to the wedding out of good and free will.