Corona Daily 400: A Wedding in Bihar

30 year old A. worked as a software engineer at Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi. Gurgaon is one of the leading financial centres of India.  Since the start of the lockdown, A. was a worried man. The most important event in the life of an Indian young man is his wedding. A.’s wedding was planned on 15 June in Bihar, his native state. After two restless months, while he worked from home in Gurgaon, he managed to procure permission to travel home for the wedding. Had he been denied that permission, his life story might have taken a different turn.

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After a thermal screening, he left Gurgaon on 21 May. Every time his car was stopped, he smiled and said he was going for his own wedding. No purpose can be more essential. After successfully covering the distance of over a 1000 km, he reached his home in Nirakhpur Pali, Bihar. His family was delighted – his arrival was timely. The first ceremony was 16 days away, more than the prescribed two-week home quarantine.

On 8 June, the Tilak ceremony took place. This can be loosely translated as a groom acceptance ritual. The bride’s family judges the fitness of the groom to marry; bride’s father puts a red mark (tilak) on his forehead. Newspaper reports don’t mention what happened during A’s tilak ceremony, how many guests were present.

An Indian wedding can be an exhausting affair. Following the tilak ceremony, A. started feeling unwell. He had diarrhea initially, and fever two days before his wedding. A. discussed postponing the wedding. But both sides felt postponing would be a logistical nightmare. So much time and emotions were invested in arranging the wedding in such difficult times. Two days before and on the wedding day, A. took paracetamol tablets.

On 15 June, as planned, A., wearing his finest clothes, rode a horse from Naubatpur to Peeplawa. The Indian government currently allows a maximum of 50 guests at a wedding. It is reported that fewer than fifty people accompanied the groom on his ten kilometer procession.

Early morning on 17 June, his wedding barely a day old, A. woke up at 04.30 complaining of severe stomach pain. His father drove him to AIIMS, Patna, a well-equipped hospital. On arrival, doctors tried to give him oxygen, but they knew it served no purpose.

The family cremated A. without post-mortem, and without a test.

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On learning of A.’s death from neighbourhood gossip, the local administration suddenly woke up. It first tested the groom’s family and found eight members tested positive.

Contact tracers went into overdrive. A three day swab testing camp was organized between 24-26 June. Out of the 364 people who could have come into contact with the wedding party, 86 tested positive.

Sri Kumar Ravi, the local magistrate, equated the wedding to an act forcing the guests to commit mass suicide.

The one curious note from the news reports was that despite the super-spreading, the bride herself tested negative.

Ravi