Meet the Purple Pundit

My name is Sushma. I grew up in Canada and now I live in New York City. In terms of Indo roots, I'm from U.P. and my Hindi is awesome. No, really. It is. I sing it pretty well, too. I'm a mom, a wife, a sister and above all, a person who genuinely believes in marriage equality and that discrimination of any kind is BS.

The idea started in 2013. I was planning my own big fat Indian wedding and my trans sibling-in-law mentioned that if they wanted to marry their partner, they would have a hard time finding a pundit to officiate. That made no sense to me...so I got ordained (thanks, Internet!) and started thinking about how to use this all for good.

And then I did nothing...until I had a baby. It became increasingly important to me that my son learned and valued that his parents support equality and freedom. I started thinking how I could make a difference for real and then I started formalizing. Purple represents spirit within the LGBTQ rainbow. Indians in the LGBTQ community are a spirited minority within a spirited minority.

So I asked a few friends what to name this and it all came together. Fast forward to 2018 and I officiated a wedding in the hospital while I was in labor myself (true story - Google it). That story went viral (remember that day job? Came in handy.)

As a result, I got a lot more business! I've since performed gay weddings, straight weddings, baby namings, housewarmings, Ganesh and Laxmi pujas - you know, run of the mill Pundit stuff.

I would be honored to play a role in your family's event. Big, small or anything in between. Give me a shout and let's get planning!