NEW DELHI (AP) — This was a wedding like no other, and the festivities have been going on for months. So where do we begin?
With a three-day pre-wedding celebration in March, where Rihanna and Akon performed for 1,200 star-studded guests? Or a four-day European cruise in May with deck concerts by the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull, followed by a masquerade ball where Katy Perry performed? Or last week’s traditional music night in Mumbai, where Justin Bieber belted out his hits?
Wait. There’s more. A real wedding that finally took place early Saturday and was attended by Mike Tyson, Nick Jonas, Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and Kim Kardashian, who was escorted to her hotel room by flute-playing performers.
It must be said that almost all the Bollywood actors were present. And the groom arrived in a Rolls Royce, with brass bands playing in the procession.
The wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, was a global spectacle. It not only brought together the most famous celebrities, powerful politicians and business tycoons under one roof, but also highlighted the immense influence of the Indian billionaire.
This profligacy has also led many to question the growing inequality in India, where the gap between rich and poor is widening and the number of billionaires has surpassed 200. According to some economic studies, the richest 1% in the country own more than 40% of the country’s total wealth.
“The problem with Ambani’s wedding is not the ostentation. It’s the exhibitionism,” author Salil Tripathi wrote on social media platform X.
With a net worth of $116 billion, Ambani senior has made sure that wedding celebrations are the talk of the town
Millions were spent on lavish jewellery worn by the women of the family, evoking memories of the bygone era of Indian royalty. Wedding invitations were made of silver and gold. Private jets were hired to transport some of the guests. And Bollywood’s most sought-after designer, Manish Malhotra, was the wedding’s creative director.
According to wedding planning app Bridebook.com, the grand display of opulence is said to have cost the Ambani family over half a billion dollars.
Let’s do this math.
The money spent so far still represents just under half a percent of the family’s total wealth, in a country where millions of middle-class families struggle to save for their children’s weddings and sometimes spend their entire savings paying for the celebrations.
Ambani, the world’s ninth richest man, is not one for lavish parties. He made headlines in 2018 when Beyoncé performed at his daughter’s pre-wedding festivities, which were attended by former US secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
This time, he made sure that no stone was left unturned for his youngest son, Anant, who oversees the conglomerate’s renewable and green energy development. His wife, Radhika Merchant, is the daughter of Viren and Shaila Merchant, the founders of pharmaceutical company Encore Healthcare.
Guests arrived Saturday on a red carpet at the 16,000-capacity Jio World Convention Center, owned by Ambani, past hundreds of photographers as if it were a Met Gala. Foreign guests wore traditional embroidered sherwanis — long-sleeved outer coats worn by men in South Asia — and many wore creations from India’s most famous fashion designers.
Video clips from the ceremony showed guests dancing to Bollywood music. Most TV news channels carried minute-by-minute footage of the wedding ritual, which involves circling the sacred fire seven times. Even FIFA president Gianni Infantino was seen moving a leg.
The festivities will take place throughout the weekend at Ambani’s $1 billion, 27-story family compound in Mumbai, which includes three helipads, a 160-car garage and a private cinema. A divine blessing ceremony is planned for Saturday, while Sunday is reserved for a final reception. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to make an appearance on one of the days of celebration, according to local media reports.
Ambani’s critics say his business has thrived mainly on his political connections during Congress-led governments in the 1970s and 1980s and under Modi since 2014.
But not everyone is comfortable with the extravagance that has set a new benchmark for India’s multi-billion dollar wedding industry.
Kunal Kanase, a researcher and activist who lives in Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums, about 5 kilometres from the venue, said the money spent by the Ambanis has triggered “negative emotions among the country’s poor who are struggling to make ends meet”.
“It’s crazy,” Kanase said. “I don’t understand what these billionaires want to show by displaying such wealth.”
