A Hindu Wedding for a US Lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard

A Hindu Wedding for a US Lawmaker 

Tulsi Gabbard

Call it a simple and svelte Pacific Hindu Wedding. In an event unique in the history of US' politics and that of Hawaii, the country's 50th state, a lawmaker from the famed island was married in a Hindu ceremony on Thursday, with the chanting of Vedic mantras and the dappling backwaters of the Pacific bouncing off lush green mountains in the backdrop.

Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's Hindu background is no secret. Born in American Samoa in 1981 to Carol and Mike Gabbard, she was the fourth of five children, all brought up in the Brahma Madhwa Gaudiya Sampradaya that her mother embraced following her introduction to the Krishna movement in the US. She named her five children Bhakti, Jai, Aryan, Tulsi, and Vrindavan.

In a sylvan, secluded spot on the eastern shore of Oahu, at a historic site that native Hawaiian people used as a fish pond, Tulsi, 33, and her fiance Abraham Williams, 26, a cinematographer she met on the campaign trail, were married by a Hindu priest. Tulsi wore an exquisite indigo coloured gown and the groom, an elegant white suit.

The ceremony, according to those who attended it, concluded with a traditional yoga kirtan with friends and family celebrating the newly married couple with Hawaiian song and dance, followed by a vegetarian meal (both the bride and groom are vegetarians).

[News Courtesy : The Times of India]