M A I N   N E W S

Baupur — the island of the single son
From Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

BAUPUR JADID (Kapurthala), March 11 — More than half the male inhabitants of this 2000 acre island in the Beas, comprising 10 villages, live a life of enforced celibacy as few mainlanders want to marry their daughters onto this desolate stretch of land, home to isolation floods and destruction during the monsoon each year.

Some 60 per cent of marriageable youth, especially males, are unmarried, victims as much of nature as of indifferent governments.

Thus the visit of The Tribune team to this neglected piece of real estate became an occasion for the surprised islanders to recount their harsh experiences and display their primitive living conditions. “How have you dared to come here to this ‘foreign land’? Hardly anyone does even though boats are available” says Sucha Singh an 89-year-old islander.

“We can face floods, we have resurrected ourselves and our fields after the massive destruction wrought by the floods of 1988. But what we don’t know how to do is to save our sons and daughters from the stigma of backwardness and isolation carried by the entire younger generation,” says Sukhminder Kaur, wife of the “Nambardar” of Baupur village, located on the banks of the river opposite Sultanpur Lodhi. A backwardness all too evident in the lack of schools, roads and medical facilities.

Explaining their predicament, Sukhminder Kaur says marriage of girls is easier but marrying one’s sons is an uphill task. For knowing the hard life and difficulties the island residents face, outsiders will take girls from here as brides, but are extremely reluctant to give their girls in return. Their main fear is loss of contact for barring a few small boats there is no link to the outside world. During the rains even that tenuous link can snap.

Ticking of the number of young and middle-aged men who could not marry in Baupur and the nine surrounding villages on his fingers a village elder, says more than fifty per cent of young males of marriageable age are single.

“We are in a quagmire. On one hand we cannot leave our fertile land, on the other we are not accepted by the people outside,” says Hardev Singh, a middle-aged resident who is still a bachelor. Baljit Singh, who is 35 and still unmarried complains. “My mother generally remains unwell and cannot work. My parents tried their best to get a bride for me but have been unable to do so. Nobody wants to send his daughter into the midst of so many problems.

Balwinder Singh, another young bachelor on the wrong side of thirty says, “Nobody cares for us. My parents are even ready to pay money to anyone ready to marry his daughter to me. The trouble begins the moment they go to someone and tell them we are from the island in the Mand. The least the government can do is to link the island with the mainland by constructing a bridge.”

“The worst-affected are those who have crossed their forties. There is no dearth of such men who will happily accept a widow, an orphan even a handicapped women as spouse. But the moment outsiders come to know their suitors are from the island, their matrimonial prospects evaporate,” says Sucha Singh, while herding a group of such (in) eligible bachelors to the village common for a photograph.

While the young come to terms with their matrimonial prospects the local “Numbardar” and “granthi” have their own problems. “There is no community hall on the island where we can perform marriages. People of the villages collected some utensils at the village gurdwara for utilisation during marriages, but there are hardly any takers for them,” they say.

Even children on the island to young to know about marriage seem to sense something is wrong. “We want to dance and jump to the beat of dhol, but the occasion hardly ever comes,” says Tony, a five year-old.

And until attitudes change or the government has a change of heart it seems such occasions seldom will.