The stage is set for the most powerful power wedding India has ever witnessed. On Friday Anant (29), son of Mukesh Ambani, whose personal wealth is reported to be a mind-boggling $115 billion, will tie the knot with his eight-year-old extremely pretty sweetheart Radhika Merchant (29), daughter of Encore Healthcare chief Viren Merchant . It was love at first sight for both of them and the chemistry continues to be on display at all photo shoots. The coming three days invitees will witness the most expensive wedding ever celebrated in the country.
There will be ``Shubh Vivah" on Friday, ``Shubh Ashirwad" on Saturday and ``Mangal Utsav" on Sunday. The venue will be the Jio international convention centre at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) which is witnessing a thick security carpet since the Who's Who from the world of politics, India Inc, Bollywood, international tycoons and the diplomatic corps from New Delhi are expected to attend the mega ceremonies, which the BBC said is ``turning heads around the world." Dhirubhai Ambani's favourite slogan was ``karlo duniya mutthi mein" and his son is demonstrating that he has already done that.
The invitees includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will be in town to inaugurate a slew of infra projects of the BMC on Saturday, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Union cabinet ministers, chief ministers of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, W Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other states.
Leaders cutting across the NDA-INDIA Alliance political divide, who have been at each other's throats in Parliament, will arrive in style. In fact, W. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerji is already in town. She explained, rather weakly, that she is attending the wedding ``since Mukesh and Nita repeatedly called" her. Mukesh Ambani had personally invited Sonia Gandhi during the course of an hour-long meeting at 10, Janpath recently and indications are that she will come in view of the Gandhis' long relationship with the Ambani clan ever since the time of the late patriarch Dhirubhai Ambani.
Prominent among the diplomats will be the Chinese ambassador Xu Feihong, who laid a wreath at Dr Kotnis' memorial in Solapur on Thursday.
Mukesh Ambani, who dotes on Anant, has pulled all stops to make the wedding a talking point for the next few decades. All the rooms at five-start hotels in BKC and other areas of Mumbai have been booked for the guests reportedly at Rs 1 lakh per night. The main event was preceded by two gala pre-wedding parties; the first one at Jamnagar, where Reliance Industries has the world's largest oil refinery. The guests were entertained by the likes of Rihanna, a Barbadian singer believed to be the best-selling female recording artist of the 21st century who charged a cool $ 7 million. Later guests were taken on a uber luxury cruise on the Mediterranean with halts in balmy Italy and south of France.
The ``sangeet" ceremony at the Rs 15,000-crore Ambani residence spread over 4 lakh sq ft on Altamount Road saw a performance by superstar singer Justin Bieber, who was paid a modest Rs 83 cr. He posed in a banyan with the young couple much to the amusement of millions of people across the globe updating themselves on Insta and other social media about the series of events leading up to the dream wedding.
Amidst all this totally unprecedented fanfare, Anant, who is a deeply religious person, took Radhika along with him to the Kali temple at Nerul in Navi Mumbai recently and performed special rituals to ensure their lasting happiness.
