Marriage proposals from eligible bachelors from an Uttar Pradesh village are being turned down for the lack of electricity and acute water shortage. So much so that the hinterland is now called the 'village of bachelors'.
Read: Communal violence erupts in UP village after Muslim man elopes with married Hindu woman
The men from Shri Tara Majra, just 35 km south off Allahabad have not only been rejected by the women from the Allahabad's rural land but even from the interiors of neighbouring districts like Pratapgarh, Kaushambi and Chitrakoot as life in Majra village is full of hardships.
The village, with a population of less than 1,000, has 50 bachelors between the age of 18 to 29 years hunting for brides.
The village has no electricity and only one hand pump, installed in the year 2002. The hand pump is the single source of water in the village as water in the only well is unusable.
In an ironical twist, the televisions, refrigerators, fans and coolers men got as dowries are lying dormant in the households.
The plight has set off a mass exodus of sorts, with many villagers migrating to other places in search of a better life.
According to the Hindustan Times, Badrilal Jaiswal, a villager said, "My son Mukesh runs a shoe shop in a nearby market and earns well. A year ago, his marriage was fixed in Pratapgarh. The girl's family was happy with the proposal, but they broke the engagement only a month later when they came to know that there was no electricity in our village. Her mother told us that her daughter is fond of watching television."
"Not only my son's but more than 20 marriages have broken since past one year," Jaiswal added.
Another villager, Purshottam Jaiswal said, "I faced extreme difficulty in finding brides for my three sons. Their marriages were fixed on the condition that they will not live in the village. Since ten years my sons and their families rarely visit the village."
"Even if they come they stay here only for a day or two. Even our relatives avoid visiting us," added Purshottam.
"We have visited several MLAs and MPs who got elected from the area beside numerous officials during the last several years. However, all our pleas to provide electricity and enough hand pumps in the village fell on deaf ears," said Purshottam.
Even the children despise the village as their friends from other villages mock at them. "We become a laughing stock among children at other villages when they learn that we are living without electricity", said a child.
Though Rajkumar Dwivedi, SDM of Bara has promised to look into the matter, nothing positive has emerged yet.
