This weekend, Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, and Radhika Merchant, the daughter of pharmaceutical tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant, are set to tie the wedding, capping off the festivities.
The four months leading up to the wedding were filled with extravagant activities. The public has been focusing a lot of attention on the glamorous attire, exquisite jewellery, fantasy-like décor, and unique performances by international and Indian celebrities.
Writer and journalist Shobhaa De states, “It is nothing short of a royal wedding.” “These billionaires are the new maharajahs of India.
Nothing short of a mega-extravaganza is expected by their shareholders.She believes, “The scale [of the wedding] is in keeping with the Ambani wealth.” Indians “have always loved pomp and pageantry – just like the British.”
However, public interest in the wedding has been tempered by the commotion surrounding it. Many have criticized the extravagant displays of riches and grandeur in a nation where tens of millions of people live in poverty and there is a great deal of income inequality.
On the one hand, [the wedding] can be viewed as a type of farce, a kind of blindness to the realities of the nation. Even though this is absurd on another level, it still fits with the wildly warped, nearly hideous.
