Monday, October 31 2005 14:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Uri (Jammu and Kashmir): People in the quake-ravaged Gharkote village have reasons to celebrate. For the first time after the magnitude 7.4 temblor earlier this month shattered their lives, villagers put behind their grief to join in an engagement ceremony.

Instead of wails and groans, it was wedding songs and sound of drumbeats that rent the air yesterday (Oct 30, 2005) as the village got together to witness the engagement of Istiyaq Ahmad with his cousin Sabia from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Sabia's father Mohammad Younus had come to Uri on September 22 on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus for his daughter's engagement to his brother's son, who is a post graduate student in Kashmir University.

"We had planned to celebrate the event with much more pomp and zeal but Allah had other ideas. We had to conduct the ceremony under the open sky. But thank God, our purpose for coming here has been served", Younus told reporters.

Although the two families had put off the engagement for a while, they decided to go ahead amidst the rubble and debris of houses as Sabia's parents are leaving for Muzaffarabad via Wagah border in Punjab tomorrow.