Renewing Marital Vows: A Promise Of A Happily Ever After, Again

I remember flipping through the photo albums of my parents’ wedding and wondering, what it would have been like to be there. I imagined the colours in the pictures, my mother in her canary coloured Kanjivaram and my dad in his beige, Dev Anand inspired bell bottoms. The many faces that now seemed different with the appearance of wrinkles. In my naivety (I was five years old) I asked my mother “Why am I not in this album?”. She obviously laughed and stated the obvious “You weren’t born” and I was left with the sense of longing and sigh of “I wish I was”

When I turned 23, I not only got the opportunity to be a part of my parent’s wedding but also got to host it. ‘Shashti Poorthi’, is a ceremony celebrated by south Indians, celebrating the 60^th birthday of the male, akin to the renewal of marital vows. It was an emotional moment because I turned into the five-year-old who saw her wish come true.

Renewing marital vows is not a new concept. Some of us do feel that it is something that we are emulating from the west, like many other traditions. While I feel emulating things is mostly suggestive of how open the boundaries of every country and our mind are, here the case is different. Shashti Poorthi comes from the Vedas, which suggest that this occasion marks a milestone. Quite literally it means that a man has turned 60, but the sixtieth year in one’s life is a significant milestone, a touching reminder of the rich, mellowed life that one has led and would unfold in the years to come. And so is Shathabhishekam, the 80^th birthday celebration, which also involves renewing the marital vows.

As Mahalakshmi Muralidharan, an Urban Company customer in Bangalore puts it

“I have never considered my father in law like the one whom I knew by law.  He is more than a father to me. It brought me enormous happiness and excitement to get my father in law’s 80^th birthday celebrated.  It was a very emotional moment for me, personally. I felt that it was a lovely opportunity that God has given me to be able to witness their renewal of vows and celebration of his birthday.”

To witness someone not only celebrate their life but also their love is quite an inspiring spectacle. As Sai Shyam G, an Urban Company customer from Chennai, tells us

“My wife and I celebrated our first anniversary just last month. And here I was a part of a beautiful ceremony where my parents renewed their vows on the occasion of Shashtipoorthi. The chanting of Vedas & their happy faces telling the story of their years together was indeed a surreal moment.”

Renewal of vows in India is not just culturally driven. Our wedding usually comprises a guest list that has certain names, we have no idea of – how we know them and if we have ever met them. Some people believe in renewing vows just to include “their people”. The people who have vouched for their love story and stuck by them.

I met Vijay Singh Rana, an Urban Company customer from Delhi, in a chance meeting. He and his wife have decided to marry each other every five years in every possible custom they can. Their Goa wedding on the occasion of their fifth anniversary was inspired by the Christian wedding ceremony. Even though they can’t really marry each other in the exact traditional format, their theme weddings promise to cut through all cultures.

“Why do we do it? We do it because we would like the reiteration of the fact that love is a religion in itself and can’t be bounded by any existing ones. It is not there to rebel, but to include everything and everyone. And where we seek to include everyone, why not the people who we love – our friends and our son.”

A marriage is a promise of a forever, something that you hope and intend to keep. But we change with time. We grow older and wiser through our experiences individually and as a couple. The person I married two years back is not the same anymore and I say it with no melancholy, for one thing, has not changed – I still love him the same way (if possible, more). Renewing one’s vows is a great way to make everyone you love feel inclusive in your world. It is also a great way to tell each other that every time you make the promise of a happily ever after, it will last that long- forever.