Column | Why the biggest, fattest Indian wedding aka the Ambani extravaganza was also a humbling experience

The biggest, fattest Indian wedding ever has been a humbling experience. At first, I affected an air of studied disdain for the naked opulence of the Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding extravaganza.

A journalist friend messaged from abroad to ask if I was following the wedding. I replied snootily, “Trying hard to avoid it.”

I had forgotten what Oscar Wilde had written. “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it, do that.”

Part of my weariness stemmed from the fact that the wedding seemed to be without end. As Subham Chaudhuri, the popular Bengali comedy content creator @bong_short, said in a video: “This is like the soul that lives on endlessly… People’s semesters end, the entire T-20 World Cup ends, Euro Cup ends, Copa America ends, Ronaldo’s form ends but the Ambani wedding never ends.” Some remarked that the wedding, like the groom’s name, is anant — without an end. Clearly nothing succeeds like excess.

“Will you talk about the incongruity of it all on air?” asked my journalist friend. I hastily brushed up on facts and figures — the Ambanis’ net worth, the number of carats in one of the diamond necklaces, the VVIP guest list as well as India’s wealth gap and social indices. During the pre-wedding hoopla, Swati Narayan, author of Unequal: Why India Lags Behind its Neighbours (2023), said in an interview that the “inequality in India is the worst that it’s been since the days of the British Raj” and the “entire bottom half of India’s population has to survive on 6% of the country’s wealth”. But many also felt the richest man in India had the right to spend his money any way he wanted.

The Windsors of India

For Indians, a fairytale wedding had once meant Prince Charles marrying Lady Diana in London. Now, a Guardian headline read: ‘Ambani wedding: After months of celebrations, the “Windsors” of India finally set to marry’. But with a price tag estimated at $600 million, the Windsors probably cannot afford a wedding like that any more.

As I scrolled through the wedding and pre-wedding videos on Instagram in the name of research, I realised that white people, especially men, still look extremely uncomfortable in Indian regalia. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, all looked like they had wandered out of a Halloween party, stiff cutouts in Maharaja costumes. Also, thanks to the wedding, I learnt who John Cena was. Actor and wrestler and wedding guest. Cena too looked awkward as he tried out his Bollywood moves in his blue outfit with roses on his shoulders. I count that as a moment of post-colonial revenge.

Indian celebs can carry off western suits and gowns with aplomb these days. But the white people are tiptoeing around Indian culture nervously, hoping they are not making an utter fool of themselves. Generations of Indian immigrants who were once mocked as they tried to navigate western culture must be chuckling quietly. The First World-ers were now part of the backdrop for our Monsoon Wedding, the extras adding exotic colour but completely out-jewelled by the locals.

Guilty pleasure

In fact, the wedding was a guilty pleasure that kept giving. Many of us played spot-the-celeb. Friends gossiped excitedly about who was in the Bachchan family photo and who was not. Mamata Banerjee and Kim Kardashian were captured in the same frame while Baba Ramdev did a jig. Some of us gaped. Some guffawed. Some made hilarious memes and reels. Many just rolled their eyes and then scrolled some more. It wasn’t aspirational because it was so utterly over the top but it clearly fed some primal need in many of us like a junk food fix. It was our big fat virtual tub of caramel and cheese popcorn while the wedding guests had their Zucchini and Asparagus Tirodito and Extreme Altitude seeds.

Best of all, I even got a surprise gift. Not an Audemars Piguet (I had to Google what that was) as the groomsmen did. I discovered that John Cena and I follow each other on X. I have no idea how that happened. I don’t recall following him. He, with 14.3 million followers, has absolutely no reason to follow me.

Another journalist also posted a screenshot saying she too had discovered to her astonishment that Cena followed her. A columnist friend said aggrievedly, “He’s still not following me. Now I’m feeling slighted.” I felt a mild sense of having arrived somewhere in some petty pecking order.

However, the radio interview about the incongruity of the biggest fattest Indian wedding never happened. I was bumped by a bona fide celebrity who, unlike me, had actually been invited to the wedding.

So I just sidled off to the market to buy provisions to cook myself dinner. My menu was humble pie. But, at least, I still had John Cena.

The columnist is the author of Don’t Let Him Know, likes to let everyone know about his opinions whether asked or not.