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Indian couples
attend a mass wedding in Surat, some 265 kms from Ahmedabad, on November 30,
2014 ©Strdel (AFP)
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An Indian diamond trader has thrown
a mass wedding ceremony for 111 fatherless women and given each one gifts worth
thousands of dollars, saying giving a bride away was "sacred".
Mahesh Savani said the women, whose
families were all too poor to finance their weddings, saw him as their foster
father.
The 44-year-old said he had given
each one gifts of gold and other items worth 450,000 rupees (US$7,250) to start
their married lives, as well as paying for the wedding.
"Material gifts are not
important, but I have given my name to them and will fulfil all my
responsibilities as a father of the bride for the rest of my life," he
told AFP before the ceremony was held at a school in Gujarat state on Sunday.
Savani, who has now organized the
weddings of 251 women, said he began his charitable campaign in 2008 when one
of his own staff members died.
"I was very shocked when one of
my employees died just 12 days before he could marry off his two daughters. It
was very difficult for the family to arrange for marriage," he said.
"So I decided that I would
become their foster father and marry them off. This is how it began,"
Savani said.
It is not known how much the giant ceremony
wedding cost, but Indian weddings are famous for their grand scale with
multi-course feasts, decorated horses, brass bands and huge tents arranged to
entertain hundreds or even thousands of guests.
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