AHMEDABAD: Forty-year-old Vipul Patel’s 14-year quest to find a bride ended with him marrying a hearing and speech impaired woman from Raipur in Chhattisgarh.“There is an acute scarcity of girls in our community in Gujarat, which constricts choices,” said Vipul who works as a marketing manager in a pharmaceutical company and earns Rs 50,000 a month. “I have been rejected multiple times on the grounds of limited education and advancing age. Finally, I found my match in Mamta Chandrakar who is more educated and beautiful than me. Her disability is no problem.”Ankit Hirpara, Priti PatelFor 49-year-old Mamta’s parents, it is a match made in heaven. “Back home, we never found a match due to her speech impairment,” said Mamta’s brother-in-law, Shiromani Chandrakar. “We even attended mass marriage programmes for the deaf and mute and handicapped people. Also, families would demand a huge dowry.”Kajal Pradhan, Amit SavaliyaVipul and Mamta were one of the 11 couples who on Tuesday tied the knot at a special mass marriage ceremony held under the aegis of the Akhil Bharatiya Kurmi Mahasabha. Around 240 Patidar men from Ahmedabad were shortlisted for 31 women from the Kurmi community from four states — Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra.In the end, the only 11 marriages could be solemnized as 20 women, all postgraduate degree holders, did not agree to marry men with lower educational qualifications. Age was another deal-breaker.Vipul Patel, Mamta ChandrakarAnkit Hirpara, 30, a builder in Nikol with assets worth Rs 4 crore was another groom who got lucky. This commerce graduate who was looking for a bride for four years married 30-year-old Preeti Patel of Jabalpur. She is a postgraduate in commerce.“In MP, it is difficult for middle-class families to get their girls married as dowry of Rs 10-15 lakh is demanded. In Gujarat, there are no such demands,” said Yashwant Patel, the bride’s brother who said that he would like to get his other sisters married to Gujarat men!Kamini Mandal from Odisha got her niece Kajal (18) married to Amit Savaliya. This arts graduate could not find a bride despite earning Rs 50,000 per month due to the scarcity of women in the Patidar community.Kamini said that Gujarati Patidar families are preferred as they are traditional and cultured.A Patidar elder, Amrut Patel, said that the skewed sex ratio makes it tough to find daughters-in-law. “It is time that society looked inwards and corrected the mistake,” he said.

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