Shashi Tharoor weds Sunanda Pushkar

PTI
Bellevision Media Network

Palakkad (Kerala), 22 August 2010:  In a typical Malayali wedding, former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor tied nuptial knots with Sunanda Pushkar at the ancestral home of the bridegroom at Elavanchery village near Palakkad on Sunday.

 

Mr. Tharoor, a former U.N. Under Secretary General and now a member of the Parliament, tied the ‘thali’, symbolising the marital bond as per the Hindu custom, amid accompaniment of percussion and windpipe orchestra ‘nadaswaram’ at the auspicious moment shortly before 8.30 a.m.

 

While Mr. Throor was clad in traditional Malayali atire of Kurtha and mundu, Ms. Sunanda, who hails from Kashmir, turned up with off-white ‘veshti-mundu set’, like any Malayali bride would have preferred on her wedding.

 

Before the wedding ceremony, the would-be couple sought the blessings of elders of the family, who included Mr. Tharoor’s 94-year-old maternal grandmother Jayasankari Amma.

 

 

The tying of ‘tali’ was followed by exchange of floral garlands and handing over the ‘pudava’, a piece of new cloth to the bride by the bridegroom. The ceremonies took place before a lighted brass metal lamp ’nilavilakku’ with a ‘para’ filled with paddy and coconut shoots, symbolising plenty and prosperity.

 

The invitation to the wedding on the eve of ‘Thiruvonam’ was limited to close relatives, friends and well-wishers. But, a large number of media persons gathered to cover the occasion.

 

The party from the bride’s side included Sunanda’s father Col. Pushkarnath Das. Congress leader Manisankar Aiyar was the only senior politician present at the marriage.

 

When reporters urged him to speak a few words before the ceremony, Mr. Tharoor quipped saying “this is wedding, no sound byte necessary.”

 

This is the former U.N. diplomat’s third marriage. His first marriage was to Tilottama Mukherjee, an academic who he knew from school days in Calcutta. Mr. Tharoor recently divorced his second wife, Canadian Christa Giles.