Here's a guide for those who are temporarily living in Bangalore and are trying to get their already-solemnised Hindu marriage registered.
Paperwork:
- A copy of your wedding card. Make sure it's not tacky looking, because that arouses suspicion.
- Photographs of your wedding: 2-3 showing you guys at various stages of the ceremony should do. Make sure you have one with both sets of parents in it. If the parents are looking happy, it proves that they are not absent from the registration venue because they are mad at you, just because they're not in Bangalore.
- Five photographs of the two of you in size 2B. This is a mythical size that is not explained on the Internet, and is perceived differently by photo studios and registrar offices. A 2 by 3 inch size is ok, you can cut it smaller right there if needed.
- Proof of age. A tenth class certificate is good. A passport is also good, but causes problems if your address there is your permanent address from your hometown, and not Bangalore. Go with the school certificate.
- Proof of residence: This is the tricky one. Lease deeds don't work. Mobile bills don't work. Private bank statements don't work. The jury is still out on national bank statements. The usual suspects: passport, driving license, gas bill, ration card, voter ID all work, but I am guessing they are all marked with "back home" addresses for many of us. Loan receipts and Airtel fixed line bills have worked at one office each, but don't bank on it.
- There's also a form to fill which is available online. Print it back-to-back, else it's invalid. Even then, some offices have a different version of form, and that requires witness signatures in two places instead of one, so it's just safer to get the form from these folks.
- You'll need three witnesses to sign, and it's better - though not compulsory - to have at least one relative of the bride or groom do this. The witnesses need not be present at the time of registration.
- Take a pair of scissors, a fine felt-tip pen (for signing on photos), a gel pen, a ballpoint pen, a stapler, and a glue stick along. Helps a lot!
Where this will happen: At the sub-registrar's office. Each area has one assigned, and you can do it in the area where you live, or, if you got married in Bangalore, in the area in which you got married. The complete list is available at: www.karigr.org . It's ok to call up any one of the less busy ones during office hours (Mon-Fri 10:30 to 5:30, Sat 10:30-1:30) and find out the phone number of the one you need to go to. They're helpful, and will put you across to someone who knows English if you're Kannada-challenged. It might even help to pay a preliminary visit and have your documentation checked out when you go get a form.
Miscellaneous: I cannot go into too many details here, so I'll leave you with some pearls of wisdom.
Take a good, hard look at the person you've just married. Are you willing to go through endless days and nights of torture with him/her? I'm not talking about the life that lies ahead of you, just the registration process. Remember, after you have been through this ordeal, you will be unable, out of sheer exhaustion, to be able to divorce him/her for the next 100 years.
P.S. This blog is not ad-driven, so it's just out of zeal to help out others in my condition that I request you to click on this often, and share it with anyone who needs this info, so that it shows up in the early Google results and saves some folks a lot of time and worry.
