Sadabishekam : a re-wedding at 80

If you are 80,  and stay married still  (to the same person) ; and if your grown up children and their kids wish it, you are entitled to Sadabishekam -   wedding celebration,  all over again,  with the pomp and  ceremony  of the real thing.
 My uncle Padmanabha chittappa and Sambu sitti had the credentials , and  got re-married the other day at Pollachi, their home town, in   in the presence of over 300 invitees.  It was an occasion for a grand family re-union ; it was a happy  congregation of three generations of  the  Pollachi family.
I could sense my uncle relishing every bit of  the experience ; and my sitti complied  with the stress and strain of the rituals cheerfully, despite her poor health.  The rituals  included a ceremonial cold water shower,  when three generations of relations line up  to pour pots of  water over the Sadabishekam couple.  The water pouring ritual continued for several minutes, as  sitti-chittappa’s   relations turned up in strength to participate in the proceedings.
A sadabishekam ceremony entails  nearly all the rituals of the first-time wedding  minus the honeymoon. The first time , it was the couple’s parents  who conducted the marriage.  It is chittapa-sitti’s children, and their children who did the honours  this time around. Parents of both – sitti and chittappa -  were remembered on the occasion.  I wish I had asked chittappa how it was for him, when he married my sitti  the first time. A framed and faded wedding photo,  black & white,  hangs on the living-room wall at his Pollachi home. They had no video camera those days.  In refreshing contrast this time,  everyone with a cell phone was seen taking pictures at my chittappa-sitti’s Sadabishekam.
My  Take on the sadabishekam  is uploaded in  YouTube.

Cross-posted from My Take by GVK

Sambu Sithi's Wedding Day 51

We hadn't planned this ; frankly,I didn't even know that Tuesday last was Sithi's wedding day,until her daughter Vasanthi told us, during our recent Pollachi visit. That was when we thought of celebrating. Sithi-sithappa, have been married for five decades plus.
Shopping for a cake, Lakshmi found it at Kannan Departmental Store. We asked the shop assistant to inscribe this message - Sithi-Sithappa, Wedding Day 51. Raghav and Balaji persuaded grandma to cut the cake, and fed her a piece. So did Sambu Sithi's daughter-in-law Jayashri, and daughter Vasanthi. Son Babu captured the scene on his cell-camera.
Sitthappa - Padmanabhan - was not in town. He had a date with grandson Manikantan in Trichy. An engineer with Reliance Group in Bathinda, Manikandan was on official visit to Trichy, and he wanted his mother and grandpa to meet him there. We wanted Sithi to cut the cake, even though her husband wasn't in town. She hadn't done this ever before. Padmanabha Sitthappa had a cake-cutting birthday last year, his first in 78 years, at Sharjah residence of his eldest grandson Karthik.
Sithi who didn't go with him to Dubai missed out on the cake-cutting. So we thought of making her wedding day a cake-cutting affair.