Cupid magic breaks down communal walls

MYSORE/BANGALORE: For them, love is supreme. Communal divides, rejection by family and society did not matter in the face of their love for each other.
And they sealed it with the bond of marriage — a lifelong commitment to each other — despite the odds. In so doing they have unwittingly become shining examples of amity and brotherhood in an India torn by religious schisms and short of real heros.
Vinita, a college student and daughter of BJP corporator Nataraj from Bangalore, married Sheik Sultan, an employee of a premier software company in Bangalore, at the Mysore Manva Mantap on Monday.
After the ceremony, Sultan told reporters, when opposition to their relationship snowballed, different religions being the contentious issue, and there seemed no meeting point, the duo decided to take things into their hands. Last month, they got married in a temple and informed their parents of the big step in their lives with pictures of the nuptials.
What followed was the unexpected. The parents from both sides refused to accept the marriage, he said. The girl’s parents went a step ahead and whisked her off keeping her under house arrest, Sultan recalled. They were not allowed to meet, he added.
Sultan said, he has known Vinitha for the last three years and they took a conscious decision to marry despite cultural differences between them. Differences blurred in the face of their love and comittment to each other, the couple endorsed. But families were an obstacle to their union.
Sultan persuaded Vinitha to go with him to Mysore, he recalled. He took her to Manava Mantap where noted litterateurs D.Javaregowda, L. Basawaraju and Devanur Mahadev, all members of the Mantap, helped them get married ceremoniously.
Sultan said he has already rented a house and has made all arrangements to move in there with his wife. Vinitha recalls the build-up and the harrowing time it was for her husband and her as neither their well wishers nor the law came to their defense.