Tharoor ties nuptial knot with Sunanda

However, when 54-year-old Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar(48) tied the knot on Sunday, the children of both the bride and groom were also present.

Tharoor’s journalist sons Ishaan and Kanishk from his first marriage as well as Sunanda’s son Shiva were present as Col Pushkarnath Das perfomed the symbolic “Kanyadan” of his daughter in a simple and traditional Nair marriage.

The venue was a specially erected pandal at Tharoor’s ancestral house, the Mundarathu tharavadu at Elavanchery in Palakkad.

Tharoor dressed in a mundu and kurtha tied the ‘thali’ at 8.26 am around the neck of Sunanda who wore a veshti-mundu set as a large contingent of relatives and friends looked on.


The traditional musical accompaniment of nadaswaram and vadyamelam pepped up the occasion. Tharoor’s 93-year-old maternal grandmother, mother Lilly as well as his sisters, uncles and aunts graced the occasion while some of Sunanda’s close relatives were also in attendance.

After the ‘thalikettu’, the entire family and relatives participated in the Onam tradition of niraputhari. The number of invited guests was less than 150 while a large number of media units avidly watched the proceedings.

Among the guests were Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyer and former diplomat T P Sreenivasan. The new couple will hold a modest reception here on Monday before flying to Dubai for a Kashmiri wedding according to the bride’s family tradition.