Hall-1 Ki Baraat: IIT-Kanpur marries campus farewell tradition with whimsy; first ‘bride’ backed out

LUCKNOW: Where equations end, emotions begin. At IIT-Kanpur, final-year students celebrate graduation with an extravagant shaadi - groom in sherwani, bride in lehenga, baraat and all.

Dhols roar, confetti flies. The groom adjusts his turban, the bride - all shimmer and sass - tosses her dupatta as the couple says the vow aloud: "Mere liye khona bhi tum, paana bhi tum". You are my loss and my gain. A hundred cheering "relatives" erupt in laughter.The vows are real, the emotion infectious - only, the marriage isn't. Two engineering boys are declared man and... man. Once born from a sleepless prank on a chilly 1994 night, it's now a campus legend. This is no matrimonial mix-up. It's Hall-1 Ki Baraat - a mock wedding between two male students, celebrated every year with mehendi, haldi, sangeet, and all the glitter of a big fat wedding. Less about pheras and more about flair.In the chill of a Jan night, a few sleepless hostel students, led by their imaginations and caffeine, decided to stage a wedding - complete with a baraat, baraatis, and a theme ending in murder.

BK Birla of 1994 batch and now serial and diverse entrepreneur , remembers it like folklore. "A collective trip to the bathroom sparked an idea that went down in history," he said in Lucknow last week.Nimar Singh Arora suggested organising a mock marriage. We got a boy as a reluctant groom, a batch mate as the bride, and suddenly, we had a full-fledged wedding to plan."Just when the plan seemed flawless, the "bride" backed out.

Another brave heart stepped in, saving the shaadi from heartbreak. The next hurdle? The mare. The stubborn beast refused to budge without a "handsome sum". After tense negotiations, it trotted into glory.The baraat paraded from Hall 1 to Hall 6, before the ceremony in girls' hostel garden. A pint-sized "pandit" with impeccable comic timing stole the show with his made-up mantras. As the "murder" scene capped the drama, Birla's gang knew they'd created a legend.Three decades later, the tradition thrives. A viral wedding card from last year read: "You are cordially invited to bless Vedant (D/o Mr Anubha & Ms Sumedha) and Utkarsh (S/o Mr Proxxy & Ms Ashi) on May 4, 2004, at Hall 6, Basketball Court."Last year's "groom" Utkarsh Ratnakar recalls the joy. "It was a wholesome experience," he told TOI. "All my friends were there, like my real family. We poured our hearts into every ritual - haldi, dances, skits, the baraat.

It was probably our last big celebration together."The shaadi now doubles as a grand farewell for final-year students. IIT-K itself proudly calls it "possibly the only event of its kind on any campus". In its official note, the institute describes it as the Hall-1 residents' version of Deepawali - filled with music, dance, fireworks, and a "rain of blessings" when girls from hostels drench the baraatis with buckets of water.More than a ritual, Hall-1 Ki Baraat has become a statement - of freedom, fun, and the IIT-K spirit. From an impromptu prank to a beloved legend, this shaadi - fake or not - remains one of the wildest rides in Indian academia.