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South Meets North India at an Inclusive Hindu Wedding
When Dr. Yuvaram Reddy, who had lived in South India, and Chetan Jhaveri, who is of North Indian heritage, chose to marry, their families’ approval was crucial.
Dr. Yuvaram Nellore Vilambi Reddy and Chetan Bhasker Jhaveri exchanged pride garlands — six roses in subtle rainbow colors alternating with traditional red and white ones — on Aug. 10 in the grand ballroom at the Springfield Country Club in Springfield, Pa.
“We knew we wanted a traditional Hindu ceremony,” said Mr. Jhaveri, 37, as well as a celebration of their South and North Indian cultures. “I realized it can’t be too traditional since we’re gay.”
While the pride garland exchange, an updated “jayamala” ritual, was Dr. Reddy’s idea, Sapna Pandya, an L.G.B.T.Q. Hindu pandita who was their officiant, walked the couple and their parents through a modern, inclusive Hindu ceremony. (She has led 10 gay Hindu weddings in the past year).
“I gave them the run of show, a specific flow they could go by,” she said.
Six years earlier, in April 2018, as Dr. Reddy was coming to terms with coming out as gay, he noticed Mr. Jhaveri, of Gujarati, North Indian heritage, on the Coffee Meets Bagel dating app.
“He was the only man that I dated,” said Dr. Reddy, 34, who moved to Tamil Nadu in South India when he was 6 from Bloomingdale, N.J., with his parents.
Dr. Reddy, glad to see an Indian man on the dating site, graduated with a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery from Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute in Tamil Nadu and received a Master of Public Health from Harvard. In the weight of the moment, he found some comic relief — a photo Mr. Jhaveri posted of himself making a monkey face next to a painting.
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