Kerela, August 22: Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar tied the knot at his ancestral home near Palakkad in Kerala on Sunday morning.
The rituals were performed as per Kerala Hindu tradition in his 200-year-old ancestral home. Tharoor tied the ‘thali’ around Pushkar’s neck, exchanged garlands and handed her ‘podava’ or a new set of clothes around 8.30 a.m.
While Throor was clad in traditional Malayali atire of Kurtha and mundu, Sunanda, who hails from Kashmir, turned up with jerried off-white ‘veshti-mundu set’.
They got married in the presence of Tharoor’s 94-year-old maternal grandmother and Sunanda’s father Col Pushkarnath Das. About 15 people from the Pushkar family were present at the wedding.
The ceremonies took place before a lighted brass metal lam ‘nilavilakku’ with a ‘para’ filled with paddy and coconut shoots, symbolising plenty and prosperity.
A “modest reception” will be on August 23 in his constituency Thiruvananthapuram and a “final reception” in Delhi on September 3.
54 year old Shashi Tharoor is Member of Parliament (MP) from Thiruvananthapuram and former Minister of State for External Affairs. The former minister had to step down because of his links with the Dubai-based Pushkar and her stake in the Kochi IPL team.
This was former UN diplomat’s third marriage.
—Agencies