14 DAY TRIAL // A village in rural India has been home to something that seems to be taken directly from the story books, namely the wedding of a two year-old infant to a dog, so as to avoid possible attacks from tigers and other such beasts. The ritual is not recognized in the country, but many in the poorest regions still practice it.
In order to deserve the honor of being married to his neighbors' pet, the groom had to grow a tooth in his upper gum. Indeed, it seems that people with teeth are an uncommon sighting in India, as the parents and the rest of the villagers immediately interpreted this unusual phenomenon as a bad omen, and rushed the boy to the temple, were a priest bound his destiny and that of the neighbors' dog together.
No one could say that the ceremony was very spiritual. At least the shaman, priest, or medicine man had his fun at the expense of the people, and sang over the two oblivious creatures for the most part of an hour. In the end, the dog was the one to break the happy union, by going outside in the yard, for businesses that were its alone. The priest assured that the small boy, which would probably have an “interesting” childhood, would still be able to marry a human companion in the future, although people in the area found no flaw in the dog either.
“We performed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us,” the boy's father explained, as quoted by a local newspaper. After the highly-spiritual ceremony of marrying a sleepy child to an uninterested dog, the locals feasted at a party for the rest of the whole day, eating and drinking in the honor of the newly-weds.
In the evening, the dog was finally allowed to go catch rabbits, or whatever it is that dogs in India did, and the child was taken to bed, after such an eventful day that he was likely to remember for the rest of his life. Or, on the other hand, maybe not.