15 days of marriage: World around teen bride plunges into despair

Dibrugarh: In a humble dwelling within Tinsukia’s Gelapukhuri Tea Estate, 18-year-old Mala Tanti sits in stunned silence, her wedding bangles still gleaming on her wrists — a cruel reminder of celebrations that took place just 15 days ago.

Her husband, 24-year-old Agar Tanti, lies dead in a gorge in distant Arunachal Pradesh, but Mala’s young heart refuses to accept what her mind cannot comprehend.“My husband told me that he will return the next day. I still have some hope that my husband is still alive,” Mala whispered, her voice barely audible, her eyes fixed on the door through which Agar walked out on Monday morning, Dec 8, never to return.The newlyweds had barely begun their life together when economic necessity tore them apart.

Fifteen days — that’s all the time fate granted them to build memories, to dream of a future, to experience the joy of married life. Now, those precious days have become Mala’s only treasure, replaying in her mind as she struggles to process a tragedy that has transformed her from a bride to a widow in the span of a heartbeat.Agar had joined 21 other workers from Gelapukhuri and neighbouring Dhelaghat tea estates on a journey to Chaglagam in Arunachal’s Anjaw district, lured by the promise of a Rs 700-per-day wage for construction work — nearly triple of what the tea estate offered.

For a young man trying to build a life with his new bride, the opportunity seemed too good to pass up. He assured Mala he would be back quickly, that this was just a brief trip to earn some extra money for their new life together.“She is too shell-shocked to speak,” a family member said, describing Mala’s state. The teenager, married at 18 to a man she had just begun to know, now finds herself trapped in a nightmare from which there is no awakening.Agar’s father, Amit Tanti, shares his daughter-in-law’s desperate hope. “I have some hope that my son is alive,” he said, though the grim reality is that Agar’s body lies among the 19 found at the site where the workers’ truck plunged into a 1,000-foot-deep