Kailash and Binodini during their wedding. (Sanjib Mukherjee)

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 25: A teenager in Orissa was given in marriage to a carpenter after her brother-in-law who staked her in a bet lost to the man who had been eyeing her for sometime.

Binodini Moharana, 19, tied the knot with 28-year-old Kailash Moharana after witnesses to the gamble insisted that her brother-in-law keep his word.

The marriage was solemnised on September 19 in Malipada, a village in Khurda, about 20km from here.

The Class IX girl was an average student and her parents had asked her elder sister’s husband, the Bhubaneswar-based Babu Moharana, to find a suitable groom.

Babu, a habitual drinker who gambled every evening after work, met Kailash one evening around the middle of this month. The two started gambling and soon, Babu bet on his sister-in-law. Kailash, who had seen Binodini during one of her visits to Bhubaneswar and was keen to marry her, accepted the challenge and won.

Game over, the carpenter asked Babu to make arrangements for the marriage. Those present at the gambling spot also pressed Babu to keep his word.

Kailash wanted the marriage to be solemnised soon and agreed to tie the knot at the city-based Anti-Caste Marriage One Child Family Organisation of India (Amofoi).

“They approached us with the required documents. Also, unlike other cases, a huge crowd accompanied this couple. We virtually had no place to stand,” said Amofoi founder B. Ramachandra C.S.T. Voltaire, claiming ignorance about the gamble. “That they had gambled was revealed much later,” he said.

Binodini, who has moved in with her husband, too, didn’t know that her brother-in-law had gambled her away in a modern-day replay of the Mahabharat where Yudhisthir lost Draupadi in a game of dice.

“I didn’t know this part of the story until my husband told me,” she said. “Now I understand why everything was done in such a hurry.”

Kailash, who earns around Rs 4,500 a month, said the gamble was just an excuse to marry Binodini. “No matter how I got her, I will keep her happy always,” he said.