It is a place that could have saved love birds Sanjay and Manyata a lot of grief. They would have been living in wedded bliss if they had only taken the road to India’s Las Vegas, where couples are wedded before they can say Om.

Sawantwadi is about an hour’s drive from Goa, down the steep Western Ghats, 54 km north of Goan capital Panaji. The one-horse town in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district, famed for its sun, sand and wood-carved fruits, is a weekend retreat for instant marriages. Most of those getting married in Sawantwadi — the local marriage bureaux put the figure at 90 per cent — are from neighbouring Goa, the only state in India where a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is in practice.

Eloping Goans — those, for instance, seeking an inter-faith marriage in the face of parental opposition — land there with a few documents and go back home as Mr and Mrs.

On a crisp morning last week, Samara, a Goan Catholic now living in Canada, and Praveen, a Hindu, drove down from Goa to find out how quickly they could tie the knot. Their parents were opposed to the marriage, and Samara was in a hurry because she had to go back to Canada.

They walked across a stone courtyard, on to the cow dung-smeared floor of the office-cum-residence of the proprietors of Ashirwad mangalkaryalaya, one of the many marriage bureaux in the town. After being sized up by the three office partners, they were briefed about the documents required: a ration card, proof of age and two passport-sized photographs. Praveen had the necessary documents; Samara didn’t. But that didn’t trouble the marriage centre.

All that she needed to do was file an affidavit in Goa saying she was born in the country and had been living there. “Ask any of your friends to vouch for you,” says Bala Sabnis, one of the partners.

In Sawantwadi, weddings are a cottage industry, with planners and fixers at the dozen-odd mangalkaryalayas (marriage bureau-cum-hall) making life that much easier for fleeing lovers. For many lovers in Goa, the UCC — a set of personal laws common to all religions inherited from its Portuguese colonisers — can be a bit of a deterrent. The state has been hailed for the uniformity of its laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance.

But, clearly, the strictly enforced law is not everybody’s cup of tea. Multiple marriages among Muslims, for instance, are not allowed without a divorce in Goa; Sawantwadi has no such bar. Couples hoping to get married have to give a notice of 16 days; Sawantwadi doesn’t believe in notice periods.

A notice period gives ample time to anybody to object to a marriage. Since the notices are public, men and women whose spouses are hoping to marry without a divorce can raise an objection. A notice period also means that parents get to know about couples who want to marry secretly.

Goa is also relatively strict about documents and the filing of affidavits. If you don’t have the required papers, Sawantwadi will make do with an affidavit. The issue, the marriage organisers say, will be “managed” by touts at the gram panchayat office. Marriages are registered at the gram panchayat under the Maharashtra Regulation of Marriage Bureaus and Registration of Marriages Act, 1998. This law bestows upon the gram sevak the powers of the registrar.

Until Sanjay and Manyata’s infamous Goa marriage, getting married in Sawantwadi was a cakewalk, says Anil Saudagar, one of Ashirwad’s partners. “It was done so quickly that we would have the marriage certificate ready while the couple were taking the saptapadi (seven steps),” he adds with a toothy grin. Things have become difficult, he says, after the Dutt marriage fiasco. Manyata had allegedly submitted a fake proof of residence, which said she had been living in South Goa.

The gram panchayat is apparently also a little wary about legalising marriages because of a new government rule of making registration of marriages compulsory across the country. These days, it takes a fortnight to get a marriage certificate in hand in Sawantwadi, he adds.

Of course, the process can always be fast-forwarded — if you have the money to pay for it. The bureaux charge anything from Rs 3,500 to Rs 6,000 just for the marriage. The price goes up if one of the partners is a non-resident Indian, says Saudagar.

For a larger amount, the wedding planners take care of everything — from fixing an “auspicious” wedding day to planning the wedding feast.

There is another angle to the quick weddings. While the marriage centres see the weddings as quick money, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is active in the region, views them as the ideal ground for converting people to Hinduism. Since many of the marriages are inter-faith weddings, the non-Hindu partner is converted to Hinduism before the marriage is solemnised. Once the wedding takes place, members of the local wing of VHP land up to take photographs of the newly weds and leave after offering them a bouquet.

Some of the marriage centres stay away from conversions. Prakash Samanth of the Adhinarayan mangalkaryalaya doesn’t believe inter-faith marriages will work out. The ramrod straight Brahmin in a saffron lungi — whose doorbell chants a shloka every time it rings — is convinced that the differences in religious and other beliefs will create serious domestic problems at some point of time.

What is clear is that not all couples take the Sawantwadi certificate seriously. Saudagar fishes out six turmeric-coloured marriage certificates from a steel cupboard, all a few years old, which are still to be collected by their owners. “They’ll come when they need them,” he grins.

But some of these wedding planners give clients some smart advice. “You can get your marriage registered in Goa if you produce the marriage registration certificate from our gram panchayat,” says Shailesh Ghotaskar, a law student who assists his father in running Ravindra mangalkaryalaya.

If the Supreme Court made it mandatory in 2006 for marriages to be registered, Goan law, which regards marriage as a civil contract to be registered like birth and death, has had compulsory registration since 1867.

Women from Goa would certainly benefit from heeding Ghotaskar’s advice, given the fact that they are equal inheritors in the state, a right denied to most women in the country. In Goa, each spouse (married in the state) automatically acquires joint ownership of all assets already in the couple’s possession, together with those due to them by inheritance. These assets or liabilities cannot be disposed of by any one of the partners without the consent of the other. Even on legal separation, a Goan woman is entitled to half her husband’s assets.

Muslim couples also go to Sawantwadi to get married, for Muslim men in Goa are not allowed to have more than one wife under Goan law. Saudagar claims to be getting an increasing number of Muslim couples from Goa.

All the world loves a lover; Sawantwadi loves one even more.