A 'manglik' in Vedic astrology, is someone who was born under the influence of the planet Mars. Actually, there are two types of them.

A poorna manglik, whose influence from Mars is very strong, and an Anshik manglik, one who has a partial or weaker influence from the red planet.

It is believed that if a manglik weds a non-manglik, a 'dosh' or a curse is bestowed upon their spouse, and this may cause their early and unexplainable death.

Usually, a manglik weds a manglik, and they both cancel out each other's curses. Often, when the dosh is highly potent or a woman cannot find a manglik groom, the wedding takes an interesting turn.

To save the non-manglik groom, the manglik woman, wishing to be free from the marriage curse, is married generally to a tree and in some places to a pot or an animal. This process transfers the curse to the first wedding partner, and the woman can now marry the non-manglik groom.

The railway colony I lived in before my current home had a huge peepal tree which was married to a young woman who was a poorna manglik.

It has been 10 years since the incident, and now the colony stands barren and leveled due to a project which became the cause of uprooting the peepal tree. Nobody lives there except rubble, dust, and buried Pooja Samagri at the place where the heart-leaves once stood.

There's poetry in the abandonment of the place and the ecstasy of the wedding. I suspect there's a connection too.

Beliefs say a manglik tree wilts and dies gradually under the distant planet's curse. I suppose this tree was a different one; perhaps it cursed the soil it stood upon, which led to the inevitable deserting of the place as a last ode to revenge for its unfair man-sentenced death.

I don't know if the divine forces were working overtime to make sure the tree died or the place got abandoned, or an even mixture of the two, considering the faith of both devotees. Whatever happened to that place is a mystery, but it sure makes for a good tale to recite.