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When stars tie the knot
“Phew! At last they got married!!” “Total faltugiri hai yeh!” “Arre! Sirf shaadi hi hain na! What is so great about it?”
These are but a few of the remarks the Indian public, especially the Mumbaiites, made when they were being bombarded by the media with detailed gossip of what has been termed as the country’s “wedding of the millennium” — Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan’s marriage.
Worse was the contempt the public showed towards the once highly respected Fourth Estate. “Yeh newspaper wale bhi pagal hain. Sirf shaadiyoun ke peeche paray hain. Earlier it was the Liz Hurley-Arun Nayar wedding; before that it was Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt coming together. And now the never-ending saga of Bachchan Jr’s wedding! As if nothing else is happening in the world.”
The last comment actually sums up the chaotic media scene in the country in the last couple of months that culminated in the prevalent humiliation of the media and fans by the current first family of Bollywood — the Bachchans.
For four days the electronic and print media waited tirelessly in the sweltering Mumbai heat outside the two homes of the Bachchans hoping to get some shots of the bride, groom and the celebrity guests. Chasing almost every vehicle that had dark windowpanes, the media put up a very pitiable display. Even when Prince Charles had married the late Lady Diana, the world media was permitted to cover the event. People knew exactly what was happening and even the well-wishers and fans of the royal family were allowed to witness the entire proceedings from a distance. On the other hand, the Bachchan-Rai wedding was held entirely behind huge barricaded doors and newly erected walls!
It all started when out of the blue, Abhishek announced that he had at last proposed to beauty queen Aishwarya. With that started the most frustrating media chase in recent history. Everyday it was the classic example of a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To be or not to be?” Every newspaper carried stories of the wedding to the last detail.
For four days the electronic and print media waited tirelessly in the sweltering Mumbai heat outside the two homes of the Bachchans hoping to get some shots of the bride, groom and the celebrity guests. Chasing almost every vehicle that had dark windowpanes, the media put up a very pitiable display
Then there was the dilemma about the venue of the wedding: would it be Jaipur, Jodhpur or Mumbai? And if it was to be Mumbai, then would it be the Bachchans’ home ‘Prateeksha’ or the hotel Le Meridian? Reams of newsprint were filled every day with these speculations. Even the start of the cricket World Cup couldn’t distract the media from making speculations about each step of Abhishek-Aishwarya’s wedding plans. And it got an unprecedented boost when India unceremoniously bowed out of the World Cup, as the sound-byte hungry media needed something to sensationalise.
All this was going on when neither the Bachchans nor the Rais had even declared the wedding date! One thing has to be admitted that Bachchan Jr has really learnt the art of clamming up without offending anyone. If only papa Bachchan had mastered this art during his heyday, when even though there were less media channels, he still couldn’t stop getting hassled with reports of his alleged affairs with co-stars. The affairs were so talked about that he had boycotted the press for two years!Once the date was confirmed just two weeks before D-day, the guesswork on the guest list began! It was hilarious to read about who was making it to the list of invitees and who was being left out. One day the golden invites had reached Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and even Rekha, the diva of Hindi films and once assumed diva of Bachchan Sr. The next day they weren’t invited at all!
In the end more than 90 per cent of Bollywood didn’t make it to the esteemed guest list including Rani Mukherjee, who has several hits with Abhishek including Yuva, Bunty Aur Babli, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, etc. The assumed reason was that Ash, who was replaced by Rani in SRK’s film Chalte Chalte, wasn’t happy with Rani’s reel success with her husband-to-be!
Even Gulzar sahib, who Jaya Bachchan always addressed as her brother, was left out! Prakash Mehra, Tinu Anand and even the duo of Salim-Javed that actually helped make Amitabh Bachchan an icon in the 1970s and ’80s, were not invited! The final list of invitees clearly showed that the Bachchans preferred to keep in touch with only those who matter now, or would be of use later to Abhishek. People like Yash Chopra, Rohan Sippy, Goldie Behl, Sanjay Dutt, Preity Zinta (who is courting Ness Wadia, heir to the Wadia group of industries), industrialist Anil Ambani etc. made it to the list.
In fact the Bachchan-Rais’ ‘touch us not’ attitude even put the fans off. The 100-odd fans who had gathered outside the Prateeksha bungalow on the day of the sangeet ceremony were not seen during the next couple of days. They realised that they would be denied even a far glimpse of the celebrities. The only people around were the media corps.It is high time the media moguls realised that the public doesn’t have this kind of perverse interest in the lives of celebrities. Last month when Liz Hurley got married to Arun Nayar, the gossip column was abuzz with the Shakespearean dilemma for more than a year. Will she marry him or won’t she? And the public was really perplexed asking, “but who are Liz and Arun?” Before them it was the wedding of the billion-dollar steel baron Mittal’s daughter. Then it was the son of hotelier Chatwal. The public were really not aware of who these two families were until they read the news of the nuptials of their offspring!
The driver of a rickshaw put it best when he said “total faltugiri hai yeh!” It is really high time the media changed tracks and found something else to report.
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