BENGALURU: Former Chief Minister SM Krishna and wife Prema Krishna performed the Kumkum Shastra for their grandson Amartya Siddhartha, and Aishwarya, daughter of KPCC president D K Shivakumar, at a simple ceremony at their residence on Sunday.
The families wanted to keep it low key considering that it is not yet one year since the death of Amartya’s father and Cafe Coffee Day’s VG Siddhartha on July 29. The engagement will be performed sometime after this date.
The young couple, who have known each other since childhood, exchanged garlands as family members cheered.
Kumkum Shastra is a pre- engagement ritual where the groom’s parents apply kumkum on the couple. Krishna and his wife and Amartya’s mother Malavika applied kumkum as per the Vokkaliga custom.
Limiting the number to just the two families, all followed strict social distancing norms. The ceremony was followed by a lunch.
Siddhartha had served on the board of directors of Mindtree, GTV, Liqwid Krystal, Way2wealth and was Chairman and Managing Director of Cafe Coffee Day. Krishna who is now in the BJP, served as Chief Minister and External Affairs Minister in the Congress.
Krishna was in many ways the one who mentored Shivakumar and the latter has on many occasions expressed his deep gratitude to him. Shivakumar has served as minister in Karnataka under many chief ministers.