Like you, I’ve been wondering about Bombay’s big, fat ‘begaani shaadi’; come on, let’s wonder together here then!
The Bachchan family during Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s wedding ceremony at the Jio World Centre in Bandra East on July 12. Pic/Satej Shinde
The most peculiar wedding I’ve attended (obviously for work) was of a male movie star, with multiple generations in Mumbai showbiz, which explained his Bollywood guests. He was, however, getting married into a family of bureaucrats (if I’m not mistaken).
Upon entering the five-star venue then, I was hit by a surreal pandemonium among the bride’s star-struck invitees—totally running around crazy, flashing their phones at the groom’s incoming famous guests!
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I don’t think they cared at all for the marrying couple, who are inevitably chief guests at their own wedding; no?
The only other times you’re publicly the centre of such attention is probably at your birth, death—neither of which you’ll know—and the birthdays between!
The best weddings we’ve been to (for pleasure, of course) is of friends, chiefly surrounded by other select friends, and the groom and bride’s families.
With closest buddies, conventional wisdom suggests you stick to company that’s not furthest ahead in their (social/economic) station in life.
Or you do, and it probably helps with professional success, of course—but it could leave you unhappy, if ever made aware of your own place in an imagined hierarchy.
Unless you were friends forever (school/college/childhood), or before they skyrocketed, so to say. Then, it doesn’t matter, and you feel proud, save reasons to feel otherwise. Social equals generally guarantee emotional ease.
In South Asia, sadly for some (who can’t afford it), a shaadi, as a party for social display, is as much about flex, as it is about friends & fam. You may’ve noticed this, increasingly so, with your own friends & fam!
Was the months-long wedding of industrialist Anant Ambani, 29—with Nita, an indefatigable event-planner for a loving mom; and the genteel, generous Mukesh, as dad—then, an anomaly?
No more than when the Ambanis unveiled the over-the-top Antilia, the most expensive private residence in the world, in 2010.
Antilia was still the first major property that Mukesh—Asia’s richest man now—gathered all his resources to own, and call his home; unlike private islands elsewhere, or multiple mansions overseas, then.
Just as Anant is the last among his kids getting married, after all; evidently pulling all stops, therefore.
In the past, we’ve heard about LN Mittal booking the Palace of Versailles for a shaadi-banquet hall, or Subroto Roy apparently hiring Rajkumar Santoshi as wedding-videographer for his kid’s shaadi! The Ambanis instead lined up on stage, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Bieber, Remi…
What’s the impact of this on western popular culture? I notice on the dating app Bumble, a white woman on “travel mode”, which means she’s not in Bombay, but swiping away in this city, with the instruction on her profile: “I want an Ambani wedding.” Huh!
Groom Anant himself, I suppose, would get mobbed, if he stepped out on the streets in India. We found pedestrians clicking selfies with him in Soho, New York, in June, 2024. Something that may not have occurred a day before he began his “pre-wedding” celebrations back in March, at his oil-refinery township of Jamnagar, in Gujarat.
And that’s how fandoms work, with celebrities. Who, in my books, are usually well-known artistes, given works consumed by the public. That, in turn, recognises those faces, primarily from the screen.
Hence, a Bollywood star or a top cricketer (hardly a hockey/kabaddi player) is a celebrity, as is some yogi, wrestler, even a YouTuber asking second-rate questions to public figures.
All of whom were guests/friends of all ages, often seemingly BFFs, at the forefront in the Ambani wedding. Making me wonder what these fine blokes, from another world, could have so much in common with serious businessmen, who usually engage in deeply sedentary jobs, managing/growing wealth?
Okay, businessmen can be fans too. Besides, patrons of arts. The Ambanis have been amazing as the latter, lately, for Mumbai (a crumbling city, otherwise)—what with the Bandra Kurla Complex itself, and the worthiest self-named public institution, NMAAC, as a genuine gift to the city’s arts, that will remain a joy forever.
That apart, and stepping back into a wedding, opened up for mass/public consumption—what if we look at money, power and fame as three quadrants/measures of social success.
Does that make pure celebrity, even by association, an essential aspiration, still—even when you’re unbelievably loaded, and consequently influential?
We know how this is beneficial for politicians, running for public office. What about industrialists? Or, is ‘celebrity’ simply a class that naturally mingles with top echelons of money, power, organically feeding off each other as social peers?
I don’t know, if you’ve had these conversations even while relentlessly commenting/gossiping over a wedding that lasted four and half months—while getting simultaneously inundated with voluntary live feeds, pictures, hence random memes, and reels, addictive enough to be worth an Insta-gram of coke on your phone!
You probably bought that consumable data from the Ambanis as well. Maybe they know—whether or not content is king; the king ought to be content too!
What was the net-gain for India’s richest? Perhaps they don’t care; simply adding to the republic of fun. Either way, none of our business, of course. At least it’s time we got back to work!
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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