Parents attend son’s wedding in Mumbai via video calling amid lockdown

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, June 6

Encouraging people to follow the ‘new normal’, city-based professors Rachna Tuli and Dr SK Tuli solemnised the wedding ceremony of their only son at Mumbai via video calling.

While groom Gaurav Tuli and bride Mahak Maini got married in small temple in Mumbai, their parents here in Jalandhar and Panchkula, respectively, and around 200 relatives from India, US, New Zealand and Canada witnessed the nuptial knot through 80 screens on Zoom video-conferencing app on Saturday.

Talking to The Tribune, Dr SK Tuli who is working as senior professor in DAV College here said: “Desperate situation demands desperate measures. The priority was the safety of the children in such a tough time. However, celebrations can be held at any time”.

He said it was a different experience watching all my relatives and friends joining the celebrations via video calling. “As we couldn’t be there in person amid the lockdown, so we all did the next best thing we should do, we woke up early in the morning, put on our wedding clothes and hooked onto Bombay on a live call to watch our beloved son getting married”, he added.

Dr Tuli further said he and his wife and all his relatives enjoyed the wedding, took lot of selfies with the newlyweds on the mobile and laptop screens. “I have attended a lot of big fat weddings and planned the same for my son too, but I must say witnessing this marriage was entirely different. I realised when we organise wedding ceremonies and get busy looking after the arrangements, we do miss a lot of emotional moments. While via video calling it was opposite, I felt I was present with my son every single second”, he said.

Groom’s mother RachnaTuli, a professor at Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Daroli Kalan, said, “We had been planning this wedding trip for a long time but it the destiny had some other plans. We do not wish to postpone the marriage, so we asked them to marry on date that was planned and so what if we couldn’t be there in person, we were there in spirit and on screen”, she said.