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Journalism of Courage
A wedding is always special and brides and grooms these days go the extra mile to make it an affair to remember. While some prefer extravagant celebrations, others spend that money to contribute to a social cause. This couple too tried to spread some love, compassion and cheer among children in a Guwahati-based NGO by contributing all the money they received from their wedding.
Paloma Dutta and her husband Ved, who tied the knot earlier this month on December 3, planned it well by requesting the guests attending the reception to not get gifts for them, and instead, contribute to the cause. They wrote on their wedding invite, “Your presence at the wedding reception and your blessings are what we would cherish the most.”
Talking to indianexpress.com Dutta, a senior copy editor with Penguin Random House India, explained how they came up with this idea. “Ved and I have been helping people in our immediate circles whenever possible. But as salaried individuals, our financial aids were always limited. We saw the wedding as an opportunity to help people on a larger scale. Since both of us are very fond of children it was an easy decision.” She thinks it was a success only because the guests generously supported the cause.
The NGO, Shishu Sarothi works with children with disabilities. “Since both of us are not based in Guwahati, after some initial research online our families helped us to find the right NGO. We primarily chose Shishu Sarothi because their website stated that they also accepted donations in kind,” she added.
In a Facebook post, Dutta thanked all the guests for their contribution and added that 80 per cent of the gifts they received were for the NGO. She also added that the cash received at the reception of about Rs 85, 000 was also sent to the NGO.
Saying that the “initiative was a wedding gift to ourselves” the couple compared their donation to a “drop in the ocean”. “A couple of hours at Shishu Sarothi is enough to make you see how little our contributions are to run an organisation like that successfully. It is really a drop in the ocean. What we especially liked about Shishu Sarothi is how they are empowering these special children not only with everyday skills and vocational training but also looking out for them by pushing the government to strengthen laws protecting people with physical disabilities,” Dutta said in an email interview.
They hope that this initiative can inspire others to be a little more compassionate and help those in need – a wedding trend that has been quite popular in the West. Remember the Turkish couple who opened their wedding banquet for Syrian refugees? Or the Aurangabad businessman who gifted 90 houses to homeless people at his daughter’s wedding?
