AHMEDABAD: After creating a nationwide buzz with her announcement that she would be marrying herself, Vadodara resident Kshama Bindu "preponed" the event and tied the knot with herself three days before the scheduled date, she said on Thursday.
Bindu, 24, said she performed the 'sologamy' (self-marriage), the 'first in the country', at her house in Vadodara's Gotri area on June 8.
While legal experts have said that sologamy is not recognised by law, some netizens also raised questions about her real motives, claiming that it was a publicity stunt to gain followers on social media. Her followers on Instagram did increase in the last few days.
She had planned to marry herself at a temple near her house on June 11 and arranged a priest to solemnise the marriage with traditional Vedic rituals, but changed the plans after the priest backed off, Bindu told reporters in Vadodara.
"I finally got married to myself at my home on Wednesday evening in the presence of some select friends. To avoid any more controversy, I preponed my wedding. Even the priest backed off following the controversy. The temple where I had planned to get married also cancelled my booking following opposition from Sunitaben," she said.
Sunita Shukla, vice president of the Vadodara unit of the BJP, had announced that she will not allow such a marriage to take place in any temple, and alleged that Bindu was "corrupting" the minds of Hindu youths through such "publicity stunts".
In a video of the wedding shared by one of the guests, Bindu is seen wearing bridal make-up, 'mehndi' and a saree, and taking part in rituals in front of sacred fire. She is also seen performing 'seven pheras,' (circumambulation around a fire), considered an essential part of the marriage ritual.
"It was a dream come true. This marriage had everything, except a groom and a priest. As per the rituals, I performed puja of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Laxmi, garlanded myself, applied sindoor on my head and even took seven vows, which I had written for myself," she said.
"Her intention was to break stereotypes and inspire others who are tired of finding true love," said Bindu, who identifies as a bisexual person. This would be the first instance of sologamy in India, she had claimed earlier.
Bindu, who is a working professional, had also said that her mother, who lives in another city, had given consent for the unusual "groom-less" wedding.
Legal experts had said earlier that sologamy does not have any legal backing in India. "As per Indian laws, you cannot marry yourself. There has to be two persons in a marriage. Sologamy is not legal," senior High Court advocate Krishnakant Vakharia told PTI.
Another senior lawyer, Chandrakant Gupta, said, "The Hindu Marriage Act uses the terminology 'either of the spouse', which simply means that there must be two persons to complete the marriage. Sologamy will never pass the legal scrutiny." Some netizens pointed out that Bindu gained nearly 10,000 followers on Instagram in the last one week.
She calls herself a "Digital Creator" in her Instagram profile, and shares videos and photos regularly. When she made the announcement about marrying herself on June 2, her follower count was 17,900. Now it stands at 27,800.
Reacting to comments that she was doing it for publicity, Bindu had said she was already popular on social media as an influencer.