Swatantra Lata Sharma is a 78-year-old priestess from Bangalore who has officiated over 1,300 weddings, providing unique ceremonies where she explains the meanings of rituals in English or Hindi. She started officiating weddings in 1990 when asked to fill in for a male priest, and has since conducted ceremonies all over India and for international couples as well. In addition to weddings, she has performed over 30 funeral rites. She continues to be actively involved in her community through fundraising and other work.

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WINDS OF CHANGE
MANY WEDDINGS AND SOME FUNERALS
Bangalorean Swatantra Lata Sharma is doing something radically different — officiating
as a priestess at religious ceremonies
Geetha Rao | TNN
Whe’s the high priestess of 1,300-plus weddings. And among the list of weddings Swatantra Lata Sharma, 78,
has officated over are some very high-profile ones. Like the weddings of Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury’s
daughter, former Karnataka chief secretary Teresa Bhattacharya’s daughter, Pepsico’s CEO Indra Nooyi’s
niece, scions
from the Gokaldas Images as well as the TVS families. In a few weeks, Swatantra Lata will probably create
history — she’ll be the only grandmother to solemnise her
grandson’s wedding.
Invariably, a hush descends over the wedding she conducts. For, mike in hand or a collar mike in place, this
priestess from the Arya Samaj chants the mantras, followed by an explanation of their meaning. In Hindi. Or
English. And that’s what makes her weddings unique and endears her to the young brides and grooms of today.
So, whether it’s saptapadi (the seven steps around the holy fire) or kanyadaan (when the bride is given away
in marriage by her parents), the rituals come alive, decoded and deciphered to make sense; so, the bridal couple
not only enter into matrimony with their eyes wide open but also with a deeper understanding of the meaning of
the ceremonies.
Swatantra Lata’s first priestly break came when a male priest was out of town for 15 days though he was
slated to solemnise a wedding. Her friend asked, “Why don’t you step in?’’ She did.
Of course it helped that Swatantra Lata’s father was an active Arya Samaj worker and so she knew the
chants. Yet, she practised them and learnt their meanings over 15 days. “That was the first time I wore a collar
mike,’’ she remembers.
That was in 1990. Now, she is in great demand, even in Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Cochin, Baroda and
other Indian towns and cities. “Renuka Chowdhury’s daughter insisted the priest at her wedding should explain
the rituals in English. They contacted two learned scholars, a brother and a sister, from the Arya Samaj in
Hyderabad. But they could perform the wedding only in Hindi.’’ A family friend from Bangalore told the
Chowdhurys: “Just close your eyes and call Swatantra Lata.’’ They did. The wedding was solemnised with each
guest given a sheet explaining the rituals. They watched, enraptured, the demystification allowing for a new
perspective.
So successful have such weddings been that it prompted a 75-year-old grandfather of a bride to exclaim how
he wished he could marry again, this time the Arya Samaj way. Her fame has spread far and the entries in her
wedding diary have grown — she has helped Scandinavian, Norwegian, German, French, Dutch, Canadian,
Malayali, Bengali and Tamilian and other couples tie the knot. Closer home, she’s performed the marriages of
four nephews and two nieces.
What’s also inspiring is that at some, it was the mother of the bride who did the kanyadaan. At a highprofile
wedding, the bride who’d lost her father was adamant her widowed mother give her away. “I still remember the
moment when the mother and daughter exchanged a meaningful glance at the auspicious moment, tears in their
eyes. It was so touching.’’ At another, the relatives argued against the widowed mother doing the kanyadaan,
but came around and later felt it had been memorable. An MA in Economics from Chennai, (Swatantra Lata
was part of the first batch at Stella Maris), this president of the Bangalore Arya Samaj for nearly 30 years with
three gaps in between, also ran a nursery school here in Benson Town.
Havans, gruhapravesh, upanayan, shanti — Swatantra Lata has done them all. She still remembers the first
time she conducted funeral rites — her neighbour had run into her nursery school saying there had been an
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accident near Bangarpet and she was expected to identify a body as that of her relative. Swatantra Lata picked
up the samagri for a funeral and accompanied her. After the body was identified, she conducted the rites.
Though she’s performed more than 30 cremations, she still recalls that day: “I could not touch a morsel.’’ When
the boy’s father arrived later from Punjab, he saluted her by touching her feet.
Even today, her zest is inspiring. Currently she’s engaged in fund-raising for an ambulance for a local
hospital, even as she prepares for the big day soon — when she will marry her grandson and his bride, and notch
up a special entry in her wedding diary.
geetha.rao@timesgroup.com
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