MARRIAGE BY THE BOOK
A bridegroom in West Bengal and a bride in Gujarat are gifted books in dowry, setting a precedent in India. By Nikhil Kumar in New Delhi
● When Kinnari Ba remarked during a motivational lecture she gave last July that she would prefer her father gifting books equal to her weight in dowry, instead of gold and silver, it was a spur-of-the-moment pronouncement.
Ms Ba, 23, never imagined that her father, who was in attendance at her talk, would take her words seriously. The result was a dowry consisting of books that added up to 12 times her weight on her wedding day last month.
“It was a function in honour of Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge, music, art, wisdom and learning) in a school,” she explains, recalling the event in Gujarat where she spoke.
“I said, addressing my father, that I would not mind if you give me five tola (a tola is equivalent to 12.5 grammes) less gold in marriage but do give me books equal to my weight,” she told Asia Focus.
Ms Ba today is richer by 2,200 English, Hindi and Gujarati books that her father collected over six months and gifted to her on Feb 14, the day she married Purvajit Singh Sarvaiya, a mechanical engineer settled in Canada.
The bride’s father, Hardevsinh Jadeja, purchased the books (150 English, 300 Hindi and the rest in Gujarati) from Delhi, Bengaluru, Varanasi, Ahmedabad and other cities. The collection includes include 108 Hindu Upanishads, 18 Puranas and four Vedas, 17 books on the Bhagavad Gita, and copies of the Koran and Bible as well.
Ms Ba, who holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, has been an avid reader since childhood — so much so that she had created a library of 500 books in her house from her pocket money. She has read hundreds of books on literature, folk songs, poetry and stories. Her favourites include Wings of Fire by former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam, the Bhagavad Gita and books by the pre-independence Gujarati writer Zawer Chand Meghani.
She has decided to donate the books received from her father to different schools and libraries. “Books should always be on the move. I don’t want them to lie idle,” Ms Ba said, adding that she is also encouraging her husband to develop a reading habit.
Ms Ba is a motivational speaker and has delivered over two dozen lectures.
Currently, she is preparing for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination held twice a year for top jobs in the central government.
Her 50-year-old father, the principal of a government high school in Rajkot, has a master’s degree in Education and Arts. Not only did he gift a cartload of books to his daughter in marriage, but he said he did not mind if other wedding guests followed suit.
He says he may be considered unorthodox for promoting books in the mobile and computer age. He likens reading a book to eating food. “Reading a book on mobile is like seeing food in pictures.”
Mr Jadeja said he selected the books after reading their reviews and consulting his writer friends. He advises all parents of girls to select their bridegrooms on the basis of the books in the young man’s house. “If they do not find five good books in the bridegroom’s house, they should reject him,” he said, quoting Swami Vivekananda, a 19th century Hindu monk, who said that a house without books is like a cremation ground.
Mr Jadeja is not the first person to have gifted books to his daughter in dowry. In May last year, the in-laws of Surya Kanta Barik, an English teacher in West Bengal, gifted him 1,000 books worth 100,000 rupees (US$1,320) when he married Priyanka Bej, 21, a music student at a local college.
The Bej family made the decision because both Priyanka and her husband love reading. “My family knew that I don’t like the concept of marriages that involve giving or taking a dowry,” Ms Priyanka said. “So I am very grateful to have a husband who understands that. My father also knew that I love to read. That’s why he gave us this gift.”
Ms Priyanka’s father Asit Bej is also a music teacher and her maternal uncle is a high school teacher. The books gifted to the couple included works on Ramakrishna, a guru of Swami Vivekananda, Vivekananda himself, and sister Nivedita. Also included were the complete works of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Mr Barik intends to create a library with the books. At his marriage ceremony, guests were requested to gift books or flowers.
A dowry usually takes the form of durable goods, cash, and real or movable property given to the bridegroom, his parents or relatives at the time of the marriage. The social pressure on families to provide a lavish dowry when their daughter marries is often intense — even though the practice is against the law.
The act of giving or taking a dowry has been illegal since 1961 under the Dowry Prohibition Act and Sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code. Thousands of people are arrested every year but conviction rates in the country’s slow-moving court system are low.
So the custom persists, and so too does violence against women that stems from dissatisfaction over dowries.
Statistics show that more than 7,500 women a year are killed or driven to suicide as a result of “dowry harassment” by their husbands and in-laws.
Books should always be on the move. I don’t want them to lie idle
KINNARI BA