Geeta Arya (left) at Aarti’s wedding in Rohtas on Saturday. Picture by Sanjay Choudhary

Patna, May 14: Aarti was barely 20 when she lost her father in a train accident near Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district about two years ago. The tragedy left she and her five sisters devastated. Their mother’s prolonged illness further pushed the family on the brink of starvation till Aarti found a new ray of hope in the form of social activist Geeta Arya.

Geeta adopted not only Aarti but all her sisters and bailed the family out of the crisis.

Today, Aarti, who hails from Kaimur district’s Bhabua town, tied the nuptial knot with a Patna-based businessman Santosh Kumar at a wedding ceremony organised in a Shiva temple at Dehri-on-Sone, about 160km southwest of Patna. A number of people of the sub-divisional town had gathered at the wedding venue to bless the couple.

Arya and her husband Laxman Ram played the role of Aarti’s parents and took part in the kanyadan (a ritual of the wedding ceremony).

“Aarti was in dire need of help. Her mother was bed-ridden at a Bhabua hospital and her father Surendra Ram had died in a train accident. A neighbour told me about the condition of the family. I decided to provide shelter to Aarti and her sisters to prevent them from falling into the hands of wrong people,” said Geeta.

Aarti’s sisters Jyoti (20), Gudia (18), Soni (15), Rupa (15) and Khusboo (11) are now a part of Geeta’s family. “I have adopted them. I bear all the expenses incurred on her studies. I will get all the girls married in well-to-do families as my own children,” she said, adding that when she first saw Aarti and her sisters they were in a wretched condition and looked like ragpickers.

Santosh, the groom, said that he decided to marry Aarti after Geeta narrated the tragedy that struck the Mahadalit family a couple of years ago. “I am grateful to Geeta, who took the initiative to get the girl married in my family,” said Santosh who runs a business centre at Digha near Patna.

For Aarti’s sisters, it was an occasion to rejoice. “We have found our parents back in the form of Geeta and her husband, who take care of us like their own children,” said Gudia, a student of Class VI at a Dehri-on-Sone school. Geeta’s husband retired as a guard in the Indian Railways a few years ago. Aarti’s father Ram had died in a train accident coming to Sasaram from Anugrah Narayan station in Aurangabad by Dehradun Express. Her mother Santa Devi was suffering from tuberculosis.