Sunday, April 22, 2007

Abhi-Ash and the wedding bash

I am still reeling under the onslaught of the media coverage of a certain Bollywood actor-actress's wedding. Seriously, the hype regarding this event has reached such monstrous proportions that it has totally overshadowed even the World Cup. Of course, with India being thrown out of the tournament, the World Cup doesn't seem very interesting anymore, unless you are one of those who watch the game "for the pleasure of watching the sport". Who cares a damn about the sport? All I wanted to see is India winning. Pity it wasn't meant to be.

Coming to the point, if India had managed to stay on till the super 8's, it would have been interesting to see which event received greater TRPs - the live telecast of India's cricket matches or the live telecast of this over-hyped star wedding. The frenzy that has been whipped up by the various news channels has touched sickening levels. Media persons are camping outside the houses of the stars just to provide all the "juicy details" of the event. Over-enthusiastic correspondents are excitedly providing a running commentary of the even right down to the minutest detail, right from a starlet slashing her wrists to Aishwarya getting emotional about her "bidaai".

A Smart Alec once quipped: "Marriage is nothing but a public announcement of private intentions." In this case the announcement has evidently become too public, albeit unintentionally. Even the Pope's visit doesn't get this kind of media coverage. It was a good thing that Mandira Bedi and Charu Sharma were busy with the World Cup presentation, or else we would have had them presenting a show before the live telecast of Ash's wedding, titled "Extraaa Innings" (pun unintended!).

Which brings us to the question, "Are we really interested in watching this wedding?" Agreed, the two are probably the most desired stars in the film industry, adored by millions. And it is also true that with this marriage, millions of hearts have been broken. But very few people in India actually have the time and patience to sit and watch it on TV for three days. The media is trying to hype this event by literally forcing it down our throats. Each and every news channel is showing the same footage, looping it over and over again. Even the families involved in the wedding would be irritated by this unprecedented hysteria.

Under such circumstances, the question remains to be asked whether it was a wise idea to have such a wedding in the city at all. What a striking contrast this wedding is with Aamir Khan's private wedding to Kiran Rao at Panchgani, with minimal media coverage. Aamir saved himself (and many of us) a lot of headache with this smart move. Any star planning a wedding in the near future would do well to learn a lesson from this.

Hopefully by tomorrow, all the din will have died down, and everything will be back to normal. It will be business as usual for everybody, the world will be as it was before. Just one small difference.. Ms. Rai will now be Mrs. Bachchan.

And before I sign off, here's wishing you both a happy married life, Abhi-Ash!

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