Weddings of the rich and famous

India is not a poor country but a land of poor people. In this country we have very rich businessmen and politicians who figure prominently in the Forbes list, a list comprising the richest people on earth.

It has always been like this. The rich Indians spend lavishly on themselves and when it comes to celebrating weddings, no one can beat their extravagance. The official record in “Guiness book of world records” for the most expensive wedding banquet ever, goes to none other than the honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa.

This is the official entry in the book:

“Jayalalitha Jayaram (India), former Tamil Nadu chief minister and movie star, hosted a reception banquet for over 150,000 guests at her foster son’s wedding in the 20 hectare (50 acre) grounds in Madras, India on 7 September 1995.
The wedding is reported to have cost over 750 million rupees (US$23,299,162), with the dining area alone costing an estimated Rs 15 million (US$465,983) and the menu an estimated Rs 20 million (US$621,311). A fortress topped with cannons and winged mythological creatures was constructed from plywood at the entrance of the wedding grounds. The 5 km (3 mile) drive from the temple to the grounds was strewn with rose petals and lined with 600 Grecian columns strung with coloured lights along with giant papier mache models of ancient Indian princes in erotic poses”

The weddings of Sahara Chief, Subrata Roy’s sons, Sushanto and Seemanto took place at the Sahara Auditorium in Lucknow in 2004, at an estimated cost of Rs 552 crores. The wedding dresses were from famous designers like Rohit Bal and Sabyasachi Mukherjee. The venue was luxuriously decorated with mashals , torch lights, wax lights and prism glasses. There were 110 types of dishes from across the world. Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Kapil Dev, Anil Ambani, along with several other famous celebrities were present at the event.

The list continues. Steel baron, Lakshmi Mittal’s daughter, Vanisha got married to Amit Bhatia in 2004 in Versailles at an estimated cost of Rs 350 crores. The wedding was held at the Palace of Versailles and it is the only private function ever to have been held there. Shah Rukh Khan, Kylie Minogue, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Akshay Kumar and others performed at the wedding.

Gali Janardhan Reddy is rumoured to have spent Rs 550 crore on his daughter’s wedding. What stood out prominently in this wedding is its ill-timing. When entire country is facing severe cash crunch following central government’s demonetization move to fight corruption, this extravagance was proof that corrupt cannot be hit by measures like this.

We are now waiting to see how the Ambanis, the richest Indians perform their childrens’ weddings. Will they better the previous records?

-UDAAN