SHOTGUN WEDDINGS

On May 30, Bhojpuri singer Nisha Updhyaya was in the middle of her performance at a social gathering in Bihar’s Bhojpur district, when a gunshot fired by an exuberant reveller pierced her left leg. The singer collapsed on the stage.

- Amitabh Srivastava

A week in the hospital and Nisha has survived. She could count herself as a lucky exception, having survived a gunshot wound in a state where at least 25 persons have lost their lives just this year in reckless instances of celebratory firing. Two years ago, in Supaul district, a stray bullet lodged itself in the bride’s leg—she too was lucky, if one grants that getting shot just before exchanging your wedding garlands can count as luck. At other times, brides themselves have been known to take a gun and let loose a volley, leading to colourful headlines like ‘bandookbaaz dulhania’. And tentwallahs are often chary of plying their trade in the more notorious villages: their shamianas invariably come back pock-marked with holes.

Neither Bihar nor the country itself suffers any dearth of hairtrigger situations that explode into violence for deep-seated social reasons—personal rivalry, caste animus or religious polarisation. But to have celebratory occasions, especially weddings, punctuated by the rattle of guns is a special bequest of the northern states. Exuberant revellers indulging in this edgy form of catharsis is a customary ritual across Bihar. Often, a bit too edgy—and a life is gone amidst the pageantry. Scan the news, and you find a case—or five or six—every month.