BENGALURU: While many of us only complaint about gender disparity, a city-based lawyer is making a difference at home. Breaking all gender stereotypes, Advocate Kshama Nargund conducted the thread ceremony or Upanayana on her twins — a boy and a girl. This ceremony is usually performed for boys in Hindu communities.

Kshama and her husband Vyvaswatha, an industrialist, conducted Upanayana for their children Samvith Banavaty and Asmitha Banavaty, both of whom will turn eight in two weeks.

Kshama told The New Indian Express that conducting Upanayana for girls is there in the Shashtras. “I have studied this. When we decided to put the thread on our daughter, we consulted experts and scholars who said that this practice was there in the Puranas. That is when we decided to go ahead with it,” she said.

The couple, however, faced questions from curious relatives and friends. “We were asked why and what was all this about. They were curious how we would conduct the ceremony,” Kshama said.
Kshama’s father, M B Naragund, a senior advocate, said the ceremony was practised for both the sexes long ago. “It is there in our Veda and Upanishad. But over a period of time, the practice stopped for many reasons. Girls were not allowed to perform many customs such as last rites. But people fail to understand that they are all equal before God,” he said.