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Journalism of Courage
This was one wedding in which the groom was missing. He was thousands of kilometres away in the US while the bride was at Nawabpura, a rundown, downtown section of one of UP’s most illiterate district. And the nikah that took place has not left the clergy — at least a section of it — amused.
Last Sunday, guests at the wedding of Sharif Hussain’s daughter, Shazli Iram, 22, were puzzled when they couldn’t catch even a glimpse of ‘Naushey Mian’ (groom) before the ceremony. They were asked to assemble around a cot in the centre of the courtyard. Shazli’s computer had been placed on it. She holds a degree in computer applications.
At the appointed hour, its screen flickered and came alive. And there he was — 26-year-old Syed Abdul Rehman, a software engineer who works with IBM. Burqa-clad women and other elders gaped in astonishment and soon the novelty of it all had won the day. The children and women vied with each other in speaking to ‘Dulhey Raja’. The groom’s side had a web camera waiting to capture the wedding at this end.
Mian biwi raazi, toh kya karega qazi. The qazi, in fact, performed the nikah just as it’s prescribed. A vakil — a relative of the girl — was nominated besides two witnesses. The girl’s consent was secured. And only when the boy uttered ‘Kabool hai’ (I accept) thrice, did the qazi issue the nikahnama.
But mundane formalities remain to be completed. The girl has signed the nikahnama which has now been couriered to the boy, says Sharif, who works as an office superintendent at the municipal corporation officer here. When he sends it back, the papers will be filed at the marriage registrar’s court.
The boy will come only by November this year to take his wife with him, says Sharif, whose decision to go for this online wedding has angered some ulemas and also shaken the tradition-bound community in this town.
Sharif is unfazed. He remembers that way back in 1963, one of his relatives had got married on the phone in UK. A few years back, there was another similar wedding in Rampur.
‘‘Only then you had to wait for the connection to be established and you couldn’t even get to see the bride and the groom,’’ he says. ‘‘This is the first internet wedding in Moradabad,’’ he claims, rather proudly.
