Leo Tolstoy--

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.

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Here is a handful of challenge for a 4-year old to "deal with incompatability." Anju we will remember you in our prayers.

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4-year-old girl married to a dog
Calcutta, July 14

by Archis Mohan
The Hindustan Times

THIS WAS a child marriage with a difference. Four-year-old Anju Karmakar was made to tie the knot with a 'neighbour' two years her senior at Kalyani in Nadia district late Saturday night. A number of people attended the marriage, which was conducted according to Vedic rites.

The 'neighbour', however, happened to be a six-year-old dog, a pet belonging to a family living down the lane from the Karmakars at Khudramohanpur locality near the Bidhan Chandra Roy Krishi Vishwavidyalaya.

According to Nadia District Magistrate Vivek Bharadwaj, Anju was accident-prone. She was seriously injured for the first time when she was barely eight months.

She broke her arm at the age of two, nearly drowned six months later and burnt herself in a kitchen fire in February this year. Anju's parents consulted an astrologer, who advised them to get her married off to a dog to break the jinx. A search for a suitable dog ended with a neighbour offering his pet's paws to Subol Karmakar's daughter.

Local priests were consulted and the muharrat[auspicious time] fixed for 11.15 pm on Saturday. The 'groom' was made to sit in the mandap in front of the sacred fire, while Anju walked around the canine seven times to the chant of Vedic shlokas and blowing of conch shells. The ceremonies continued till early Sunday morning, when the duo was pronounced 'man and wife'.

Incidentally, Subol Karmakar is an employee of the University's genetics department. Friends and relatives of the two families attended the ceremony. It was, however, not known if any of the groom's canine friends were also invited.

Mr Bharadwaj said that there is no question of taking any action against Subol Karmakar. "Action would have been taken had the groom been a boy or man. But the law says nothing about a minor getting married to an animal and this marriage is not valid before the eyes of the law," he told The Hindustan Times.

Unconfirmed reports said that a similar marriage had taken place in the family under similar circumstances three generations back.

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The Telegraph

4-YEAR-OLD MARRIED TO DOG

FROM SHANKAR MUKHERJEE

Haringhata (Nadia), July 13

Every dog has his day. Sanjay's happened to be Monday when Anju married him.

Four-year-old Anju was given away in marriage to the six-month-old dog in the hope that Sanjay would bring luck to the accident-prone girl who lives at Mohanpur in Nadia district, about 50 km from Calcutta.

Anju's father, Subal Karmakar, an employee of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, followed all traditional Hindu rituals at Monday's marriage. Anju's "father-in-law" and the owner of the brown dog, Barun Dutta, a neighbour, organised boubhat on Wednesday.

"I had to do it to ward off the evil eye. My youngest daughter is suffering from various diseases from her birth and suffered a number of accidents. One astrologer, Badal Bhattacharya, who is known to our family for years, advised me to marry my daughter off to a dog to save her life,?" Karmakar said.

He said that since it had to be a dog that his daughter had to wed, he felt a known dog was always better than an unknown one. "Barun is my old friend and like our relative. He has a dog which I selected as my son-in-law," he said.

So up went a pandal and a decorated entrance to it, the lights shone bright, the shehnai sounded and, of course, the feast.

Anju was dressed in a red Benarasi sari, an odni draped over her tiny head, and a big garland of jasmine hung from her thin neck. One of their neighbours, Parama Karmakar, arranged the bridal dress.

Amid blowing of conchshells and much ululation, little Anju garlanded the groom dressed in a piece of blue-and-white cotton cloth.

The groom had no name till he entered the chhadnatola, where the marriage rites take place. When the priest asked the guardian of the groom to reveal his name and gotro (sub-caste), Barun was stumped. One of his quick-thinking relatives came up with the answer: he named the dog Sanjay.

After the rituals were over, the "couple" was kept in a specially- decorated room with members of both families around them.

As many as 300 guests were invited to the marriage ceremony. The CPM local committee secretary, Kamal Karmakar, was among them along with his comrades.

"I did not hesitate to spend money to please the guests despite my limited financial ability," said Subal.

The menu for the feast was rice, murighanta, two types of vegetable, fish curry, mutton curry, chutney, papad, curd and rasogolla.

The guests brought along gifts, the kinds that are seen in every man-woman marriage. One of Subal?s close relatives presented a toy and a packet of chocolates.

"Nobody brought anything for the kutta[dog] but I have given him a silver ring," Subal's wife, Annada said.

Subal's brother-in-law, Nirmal, revealed after some hesitation: "We have given a dowry of Rs 1,000 to the owner of the kutta, Barun."

People are surprised that Subal, being a moderately educated person, fell for such a superstitious rite. "We went to see the fun and to eat a mouthful of meat," said Tapan Dutta, a resident.

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Girl marries dog... (Reuters)

In a bizarre wedding service in India, a four-year old Indian girl has married a stray dog in a traditional Hindu service. The ceremony was prompted by an astrologer; who told the girl's father that the ceremony would transfer the evil effects of the planet Saturn from the girl to the dog. The girl, Anju, had suffered bad luck from fractured bones and several illnesses, and so the astrologer recommended that she married the dog. The girl was married on Monday with Hindu priests chanting hymns in front of 150 of the 250 residents in a village, 35 miles north of Calcutta. Although locals ridiculed the father, he was unrepentant. "My grandfather arranged a similar marriage with a dog 40 years ago and the remedy worked" he said. However the next day, the priest was arrested, and the dog is now on the run...

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http://www.telegraphindia.com/archive/1000725/editoria.htm

Letters to The Editor

Dog days are here again

Sir - I wonder which is better, a girl getting married to a dog, or a girl marrying a man and being treated worse than a dog on grounds of belonging to different caste, creed or religion ("Four year old married to a dog", July 14).

I think the four year old girl, Anju, has been saved from the evil eye, that is, the evil eye of the society once and for all through this marriage. What more can a poor dog do to spoil her life? What further misfortune could befall her?

Yours faithfully
Malika K. Sarkar-Desai, via email

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Sir - The news of the four year old girl being married to a dog came as a shock, but is not all that surprising in the context of our present social condition. All the same, this should make us deliberate whether we really have the right to call ourselves civilized. We cannot blame poverty or illiteracy any more, simply because even those who are neither poor nor uneducated act with this kind of mindlessness. No matter how much progress we make in science and technology, we will continue to remain immersed in the depths of superstition.

Yours faithfully,
Saikat Ray, Hooghly

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Sir - Could not Subal Karmakar, the father of the child married off to a dog, use the money he spent to feed the guests at the farce of a wedding to treat his child for her illnesses? Such shameful acts should be punished severely ("Dog bride father held", July 17). But what about those others who stood as silent spectators, and contributed to the "success" of the event?

Yours faithfully,
A. Matthew, Calcutta,

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Sir - People in West Bengal, who supposedly understand and chant the verses of Rabindranath Tagore, follow the ideals of Vivekananda, and keep the Bible, Quran and the Bhagvad Gita in their homes, have really gone to the dogs. Or else how could some people tolerate a four year old girl being married off to a dog?

Yours faithfully,
K.C. John, Barisha

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Sir - The editorial, "Look back in superstition" (July 15), rightly holds that a macabre incident like that of a girl-dog wedding shows the undying power of superstition. The silver lining is that the girl's father has been arrested.

But to put an end to such cruel incidents any further, middlemen, like the priest, the astrologer, and the opportunist guests who relished the wedding feast should first be punished severely.

Yours faithfully,
Govinda Bakshi, Budge Budge

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Sir - Girl-dog marriages were not heard of even in primitive days. It is worse than the crime of female foeticide or infanticide. Rights organizations should focus on it.

Yours faithfully,
N. Bose, Ranchi