By P.T. Bopanna
I had taken special interest in the recent destination wedding in Greece of Sunrisers Hyderabad co-owner Kavya Maran because the bride’s mother Kaveri hails from my home town Gonikoppal in Kodagu (Coorg) district in Karnataka.
Kavya married music composer Anirudh Ravichander about whom I was familiar because he had composed “Why This Kolaveri Di,” a viral Tamil-English (“Tanglish”) song he wrote in 2012.
Before I come back to the wedding part, I wish to note that Kavya’s mother Kaveri, of Sun TV Networks Ltd., was at one time India’s highest paid corporate executive, surpassing the salary of even the richest Indian Mukesh Ambani.
Kaveri is the daughter of the late Jammada A. Belliappa, and Neena. Belliappa was an insurance executive based at Chennai, where Kaveri met Kalanithi Maran, at a friend’s place and got married in 1991.
Now coming back to Kavya-Anirudh wedding, it was a ‘self-respect’ marriage ceremony where the couple skipped traditional Hindu priests, Vedic mantras, etc. The couple exchanged garlands and matching chains in the presence of family and friends.
Having been influenced myself by Tamil Nadu rationalist, E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar), the self-respect marriage was conceived by the rationalist who launched the self-respect movement in Tamil Nadu in 1925 to promote gender equality, mutual consent, and the rejection of caste and patriarchal hierarchies.
When C.N. Annadurai was chief minister of Tamil Nadu in 1967, his government enacted self-respect marriage legislation by amending the Hindu Marriage Act.
Self-respect marriage has similarity with Kodava wedding where priests are not required to solemnise the wedding, but the family elders guide in performing the rituals.
By avoiding various ceremonies involved in a traditional Hindu wedding, the families can cut down on the cost of the wedding.