Some 100 invitees, close relatives and friends, attended the traditional Nair wedding on the auspicious day of Uthradam, the day before Kerala's harvest festival of Onam. After lunch, the MP and his wife left for his constituency Thiruvananthapuram where the couple is hosting a reception Monday morning and plans to have the Onam feast with inmates of an orphanage in the city.
Those who played host at the Mundarath Tharavadu in Elavanchery village include Tharoor's two journalist sons Kanishk and Eshan and Pushkar's son Shiva who is a student in Dubai besides his 92-year-old grandmother Jayashinkini Amma, mother Lilly and sisters Sobha and Smita. His maternal uncle Narayananunni, a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) member and former president of the village council guided the ceremony.
Television crew from the national and regional channels started swarming Mundarath Tharavadu well in advance on Saturday provoking Tharoor to protest on his Twitter site: "Grandmother's home besieged by TV crews. May I appeal to media to please respect my privacy at this personal moment for my family?"
When reporters urged him to speak a few words before the ceremony, Tharoor quipped: "This is wedding, no sound byte necessary."
Tharoor, who was attending the parliament session, reached Palakkad Saturday evening from New Delhi via Coimbatore where Sunanda and her family were staying. His mother and other close relatives reached home much in advance.
The 54-year-old tied the 'thali', the necklace given by the groom's family to the bride, symbolizing the marital bond as per the Hindu custom, amid beating of drums and Nadaswaram, the wind instrument played aloud at auspicious occasions, shortly before 8.30 am.
