Ahmedabad: Mahesh Savani becomes the busiest person on Father’s Day.
On that day, the 47-year-old businessman receives greetings from 472 married women from all religions and castes who consider him their father figure. They are not his biological children, but girls who have lost their fathers.
For the past eight years, Savani has organized their weddings acting as their father years.
It all started after his brother’s death. Savani had to perform the ‘kanyadan’ for his two nieces, around 10 years ago. The event left him thinking about the many girls without fathers.
From 2008, he started not only to help such women get married but supported them through their married life. He has organized weddings annually since then, The Times of India reported.
Savani has interests in realty, diamonds, and schools. He belongs to Raparda village of Bhavnagar in Gujarat. His father, Vallabhbhai, arrived in Bhavnagar some 40 years ago to work as a diamond polisher. He gradually became a unit owner. Now the family is prosperous enough for Savani to spend over 400,000 rupees on each daughter’s wedding.
“It is challenging for a woman who has lost her husband to get her daughter married,” said Savani. Apart from gold and silver ornaments, the daughters get clothes, utensils, and electronic goods needed to start a home. As many as 216 girls will get Savani’s help to marry in this year. And the girls come from all religions and castes.
The girls praise their “Mahaesh Papa.”
“Mahesh papa is more than a father to me. I wish every girl in the world gets a father like him,” said Naheda Banu, who lost her father when she was a child, married Arif in 2014.
Hina Kathiriya, who lost her father six years ago, got married in 2015. “Mahesh papa is just a message away when we need him,” she added.