Tale of Two Weddings

That Sahara superchief Subrata Roy is a rich man is not news. That he has powerful friends is known even to the average Page Three reader. Yet, the 10,500-odd guests who took flights out of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata came back from Lucknow astounded at the extravagance and class of the wedding of Roy's son Sushanto. Shooting in Bollywood ground to a halt and politicking in Delhi was put on hold as power-people from A.B. Vajpayee to Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Kapoor clan and Ram Gopal Varma boarded the Sahara flight nobody wanted to miss. The festivities will end on February 14 when Roy's younger son Seemanto also marries at the venue.

It was not so much the money spent or the A-list attendance that everybody's talking about. What guests are struck by is the attention to detail- the golden napkins on the flights and the golf carts to take guests from the gate of Sahara Shehar to the venue-and the way in which Roy "threw it all together", as a guest put it. Roy was the perfect host, spending time with all guests, not sticking to any VVIP clique. Politics, business and intelligentsia mingled as effortlessly as the UK-based Symphony band belted out old Shammi Kapoor numbers. Nadia, a Russian gymnast, stood atop a hot air balloon and distributed flowers. Flamenco dancers and Shiamak Davar, the finest cheese cake and Mumbai street food, Lucknavi and Lebanese. "It was Karan Johar meets Mulayam Singh," said a guest. While Rohit Bal and Sabyasachi designed for the families, and Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai mingled with the guests, the man wielding the wedding video camera was Raj Kumar Santoshi. Even the 75 mm director who makes big budget fare was stunned at the scale of it. "I have never seen an event as grand as this," he says. He's trying to record everything, "but it is so huge that it will not be possible". Little wonder then that Anil Ambani got lost in the baraat and Bachchan had a few restless minutes before he finally located the tycoon. All's well that ends well, Jai Sahara.