A Covid wedding: Archers Atanu, Deepika grapple with regulations

Vinayak Padmadeo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 15

Archery’s power couple Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari are in a bind. As June 30, their wedding day, nears, there is a lot of last-minute running around to do. Most importantly, they are having to deal with a lot of angry relatives and friends who would not be invited to the wedding.

Why get married at this time of the pandemic, why not push back the date? “We are getting married to get the marriage out of the way as we have been engaged for almost two years now. Samajik vivah karna chahte hai bas,” Atanu told The Tribune.

The government’s guidelines limiting public gatherings to a maximum of 50 people have tied their hands — invitations have to be sent with a careful pick and choose policy. The lucky few who would get invited would be provided masks and hand sanitisers and asked to sanitise their hands every half-an-hour.

“There is a government rule that limits the gathering so we are having to think before sending out the invitations,” Atanu said. “We are also having to think about how to ensure that the guests wear masks all the time and maintain distance. The people serving food will wear masks and gloves. We have to be safe and keep others safe.”

Asked what would happen when the guests line up for the customary photoshoot with the newly-wed couple? “I think we will have to slide down our masks for a minute for the photos to be taken!” Atanu said with a chuckle.

Atanu and Deepika had earlier planned to get married last year, but shelved the plans after the women’s national team failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled for July-August this year. Deepika had secured an individual quota for India, but they shelved the marriage plans. They then thought of getting married after the Tokyo Olympics, but the event was postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Right time

“There have been at least three times when we wanted to speak to our parents about marriage, but a lot of things didn’t go to plan. So when we returned home from national camp, we told our parents that this was the right time,” Atanu explained.

“We were given two muhurat dates, in June and November. We decided to get married now as by November we hope sport would be resuming and we would have to be ready for competitions,” he said. “Both of us are absolutely clear that we don’t want to disturb our focus on our sport.”