Some 12,000 couples, taking advantage of a rare auspicious date for
weddings in the midsts of months of bad ones, will get married on the same day
in the Indian capital New Delhi, a report said today.
The huge number of nuptials will take place on
November 27, 2003 which Hindu priests have said is a lucky day for
weddings, Thee Times of India reported.
So many ceremonies are taking place at the same time that hotels are having
to turn away people seeking venues and Hindu priests are in short supply, it
said. "With so many weddings lined up on November 27, 2003 there is a shortage
of pandits (priests) to solemnize the marriage ceremonies," Dwarkanath Mishra,
a west-Delhi based priest, told the newspaper.
The Hindu wedding season runs from May to mid-December, with the bulk of
ceremonies taking place once the monsoons are over in September and peaking in
November, but has been greatly distorted this year
and next by a long series of inauspicious days.