Shashtipurti

We wanted to get our parents married again for a few years, since their first wedding was very down to earth. And as tradition goes, my dad's 60th birthday was the time to do so. We miscalculated it to be 2014! (Oops) and later realized we missed it. Better late than never, so we decided to do it before March 2014, his 61st birthday, and the dates were picked to be Jan 3rd and 4th of 2014.

My dad being a very God loving person, he wanted it to be more good deeds than lavishness. He wanted the poor to be fed and clothed. We picked all workers serving the needs of Indu fortune fields to receive this benefit.

January 3rd was an array of prayers (kalashabhishekam) from 7 am till 1.30 pm. One part was where they had to brush their teeth 108 times with some twig, apparently very good for health.  Lunch followed for 150 close relatives and friends and about 125 workers of the community.

January 4th was again some prayers (Homam, Surya pooja, Shiva abhishekam) followed by Tantu, which was the actual marriage. They exchanged garlands, father tied nuptials to mother, talambralu, followed by a very graceful reciting of few poems written by Rajashekhar uncle representing Allur degree college.  About 250 people from the community were invited that day for lunch. After the ceremony there were only about 40 people closely associated to our families and Ramakrishna babai hosted the rest of the event and he did an excellent job of dragging all the shy relatives to share few words about their experiences with mom and dad. One can realize how many people they helped through all these years, by counting the number of people who choked up with tears in the middle of their speech's. Siri and I had been debating for few days about doing a speech or not, and we had to walk to the mic with our half thought speeches. We were very glad we did the speeches though.

 

What i said in my speech, was basically the importance of their role in my success in life, be it my education, my desire to help others or my confidence to tackle any problem. I did start off on a funny note about the audiences needing to lower their expectations of my speaking abilities in comparison to my dad. I also mentioned how my dad taught me how eat an omlette and lentil rice. To maximize the taste, you are supposed to place a piece of omlette in your mouth and then the rice. I also mentioned how my mom fills up anyone's plate even before they finish all of it. We learnt to help others from both of them. Through their 34 years of marriage, they learnt a lot and taught us a lot. We were taught hard work pays, if it doesn't, it means we need to work harder.

What i missed to say that day (due to lack of preparation) was, how I caught my entrepreneurial spirit from my dad and the nature of not complaining, irrespective of work load, from my mom. They were hardworking and lucky enough to work their way from renting a 1 room-kitchen apartment to owning a 3 BHK villa. Any of my achievements till now or even in the future will definitely have their contribution. Family and events like this are what we badly miss living in the US. We also forgot to give them the Movado watches on the stage. We presented them later in the evening.

Siri delivered a speech highlighting her memories and how she became a better person through their upbringing. Some more relatives went ahead with their speeches of their experiences.

My dad closed with a speech of his memories, highlighting their hardworking and God's grace for what they are today and how lucky they felt for having all of us in their lives. He recollected experiences about grandma not accepting any free money, even though they had hard times educating a big family of 6 siblings. He pointed out how a lot of people helped them in their success and never to forget them and also to pay it forward. After the speeches, they were then walked into our home where they had to announce their names and my mom was shy and giggling for a little while. Suresh washed their feet and they entered our home.

After a few hours we started distributing clothes to community's workers. We spent more than 2 hours, the night before, to organize who got what. The clothes were carefully picked so the pant and shirt was matching and also so the sarees were of good design. Word came around that they were happy with the quality of the clothes.

We didn't realize until that night, after all relatives left, how bad our bodies were aching. We all needed a Goodnight's sleep.