Indians Married At Racecourse

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31587, 26 January 1968, Page 2

Indians Married At Racecourse

“The Preet” Special Service TE AWAMUTU. Te Awamutu people will long remember the marriage last week of Miss Tarabin Devji and Mr Santa Singh.

More than 700 guests, most of them Indians and the remainder Maoris, watched the ceremony from the Waipa Racing Club’s racecourse grandstand, which had been hired for the occasion by the bride’s father, Mr C. Devji, a Parawera storekeeper. About 200 more guests were Invited but could not attend. The bride is an Indian trainee physiotherapist from Parawera, a few miles east of Te Awamutu, and her husband, Mr Singh, a Fiji Indian. The marriage was conducted in three languages—English, Maori and Sanskrit, the ancient and sacred language of India.

The couple went through both a Christian and a Hindu wedding service.

The Rev. P N. Te Panapa, of Te Kuiti. spoke in Maori after conducting the Christian service in English. Mr Shival Master, of Rotorua, conducted the Hindu service in Sanskrit.

The bride, wearing a gold and white sari and attended by two bridesmaids, stood with her ausband on a small dais in front of the granditand.

The two placed flower gar-1 lands around each other’s necks and walked four times! around the platform while Mr Master blessed the seven components of the ideal marriage —sufficiency of food, health, wealth and its correct use for

education and culture, peace of mind, faithfulness, mutual understanding and adjustment, and loyalty. Mr and Mrs Singh plan to live in Dunedin, where Mrs Singh hopes to work as a physiotherapist, and Mr Singh, a bachelor of science, will further his studies.