Patna, Jan 21: The day the Indian cricket team registered an emphatic win over Australia, a youth in Bihar's Bodh Gaya won the hand of an Australian girl and married her in true Hindu style.

It was a rare moment for the people of a village near Bodh Gaya when Tanya, an Australian girl, married Sujeet, a young tourist guide.

Tanya, a teacher in Adelaide, Australia, clad in traditional finery, wed Sujeet Saturday, amid much fanfare at a temple in Bodh Gaya, over 100 km from here.

"The marriage was solemnised in true Indian style with the bride taking the ritual seven rounds of the fire and the groom applied vermilion in her hair," Manish Kumar, a friend of Sujeet, told IANS by telephone Monday.

Apart from Sujeet's family and several villagers, Tanya's mother Lui, friend Jecky and half a dozen Australian tourists attended the ceremony.

"There was much merry-making with the locals dancing, singing, drinking wine and feasting to celebrate their marriage," Kumar said.

Tanya met Sujeet, a tourist guide in Bodh Gaya, considered the birthplace of Buddhism, during a trip nearly three years ago and fell in love with him.

"It was love at first sight," she said. After spending a few days she returned to Australia two-and-half years back but could not forget him.

This, however is not the first such incident in Bodh Gaya. A few years ago, Sanjay Manjhi, who runs a small shop in Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, met Areen, an Australian tourist guide, and married her here.

(IANS)

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