Marriages have become costlier over the years. The current size of the Indian wedding market is 50 billion USD and the market is growing at the rate of 25 percent per annum. However, for countless poor families, marriage means long term indebtedness. The money which could be put to use for many other meaningful purposes by poor families is spent on ceremonies and fancy dresses particularly for the bride thus putting them under financial stress. I would like to share with you all a story that I recently came across. The story is about dress bank for brides who can not afford special dress for their big day.

The story is about Nasar Thootha from Malappuram district in the state of Kerala. Nasar is a taxi driver who also runs a free dress bank to help poor girls to get wedding dress for their marriage. Nasar worked for a supermarket in Saudi Arabia for seven years before moving to India. Back in India he bought a taxi to earn a living. It was his interaction with a mother daughter duo who were worried about wedding dress with marriage if the daughter in few days. The family was poor and could not afford even a simple wedding dress. Nasar took their address and ensured wedding dress before marriage for the girl.

The incident gave him idea to start wedding dress bank for poor girls. Today Nasar has already helped more than 350 girls. He has rented a space and has a decent collection of wedding dresses. He accepts donation of used wedding dress. After dry cleaning the dress and proper packing it’s ready to be delivered to the needy free of cost. Families not only from Kerala but even neighbouring states of Tami Nadu and Karnatka have also benefitted. In fact he had even delivered wedding dress to a few in far off Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. As word spread people not only from India started sending their used wedding dresses but now he gets donations from the Gulf and even from far off USA.

Dear readers if you have any such dress in your house, I urge you to pass it to Nasar. Instead of keeping wedding dress for nostalgic value it would be much better used by donating to Nasar.