Indian woman cancels arranged wedding after watching drunk groom’s 'snake dance'

Arranged marriages remain the norm despite modernising attitudes in other aspects of Indian society

Witnesses said the bride was so embarrassed that she called off the wedding just before rituals were due to begin (Getty)

A bride in India called off her wedding after watching her drunken husband-to-be perform a “snake dance”, in a case that highlights the perils of arranged marriages.

Priyanka Tripathi, 23, apparently refused all attempts by the groom’s family and friends to persuade her Anubhav Mishra was a good match. She married a different man a day later.

Arranged marriages remain the norm in India despite modernising attitudes in other areas of social and cultural life.

In a similar case in 2015, an Indian bride walked out of her wedding after the groom failed to answer a simple maths question.

Tuesday night’s wedding collapsed after the groom’s “cringe-worthy” attempts at the nagin dance, just before he was due to meet the bride’s family.

The routine, not dissimilar to a belly dance, which requires the performer to wriggle and roll, sometimes on the floor and often making a hissing noise, is popular at Indian nuptials.

According to The Times of India, the pair had exchanged gifts and conducted other pre-wedding rituals before the groom took to the dance floor.

But Ms Tripathi and her family were so unimpressed with Mr Mishra’s apparently drunken behaviour that the wedding, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, was immediately called off.

"The boy created quite a scene. I had to support my girl," the bride’s father reportedly said.

A recent survey found 84 per cent of married young Indians (aged 15 to 34) had their relationship arranged, while just 6 per cent were in a “love marriage”.

And half of young Indians who are yet to tie the knot say they favour their parents making a decision regarding their life partner.

Arranged marriages are often used to prevent mixing between castes. The survey showed a third of those not in an arranged marriage were with someone outside their caste, while 97 per cent of arranged marriages were found to be within caste.

During the 2015 wedding, also in Uttar Pradesh, a woman named Lovely Singh asked groom Ram Baran to solve the simple sum: 15 plus 6.

When he replied 17, she promptly left and accused him of being illiterate.

Despite pleas from the groom’s family, Ms Singh refused to return to the ceremony and said she had been misled about his education.

Local police mediated between the families, and both sides returned all the gifts and jewellery that had been exchanged before the wedding.

It followed a month after a bride in the same state married a wedding guest after the original groom had a seizure and collapsed at the wedding venue.

His illness was a shock to his wife-to-be, who was apparently furious that she and her family had not been told of his epilepsy.