KEY POINTS:
The couple themselves would make the ultimate Hollywood love story. One is an impossibly beautiful green-eyed starlet who conquered hearts across the world with her stunning silver-screen looks, the other is a muscled, gritty heart-throb and heir to one of the most popular acting dynasties in the world. And today they finally tie the knot after finding love on a movie set.
But this is not the story of Brangelina or the latest Hollywood duet. This the story of "Abhiash", Bollywood's hottest couple, and the wedding India has been waiting for with a level of anticipation that could, perhaps, be rivalled only by a Cricket World Cup final pitting India against Pakistan.
When Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan announced their engagement in January, it was clear that their wedding was only going to be one thing: The Wedding of the Century.
Rai, a former Miss World and one of the few Indian filmstars to have successfully crossed over into Western cinema (thanks to British director Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice) is Bollywood's leading lady. Her husband-to-be, Abhishek, is the son of Amitabh Bachchan, the godfather of Bollywood who has been known to churn out more than 60 films a year and is quite possibly India's most popular filmstar of all time.
When Britain's paparazzi descended in their droves last month on the western desert city of Jodhpur for the second wedding ceremony of Elizabeth Hurley and her textile mogul husband Arun Nayar, India looked on somewhat bemused.
As one Indian journalist put it: "Ultimately very few people in India had ever heard of Liz Hurley, let alone cared that she was getting married. Many Western journalists were asking locals in Jodhpur,'What do you think of Liz Hurley?' and most of them replied 'Who's Liz Hurley?'. As far as Indians are concerned there is only one wedding this year, that of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan."
That would be putting it mildly. Both actors have remained two of the most popular stars in recent years; an impressive feat in the highly fickle world of Bollywood where a single bad film or politically careless remark can result in this month's hottest star being replaced the next by the latest beautiful hopefuls who arrive in Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, in their thousands each year.
Born into a devout Hindu family in the southern port town of Mangalore, Rai first made headlines after winning the Miss World contest in 1994. Her vibrant jade-green eyes were an unusual asset for someone from a southern Indian state and she soon began turning heads in Tamil language films before being snapped up by Bollywood.
Unusually for a Bollywood actress, Rai managed to cross over into western cinema after winning over international critics in the lavishly produced love-epic Devdas, which was given a special screening at Cannes in 2005. Her starring role in the British film Bride and Prejudice, Gurinder Chadha's popular remake of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, made her a household name and her latest Western-made film, Provoked, tells the gruesome tale of a battered British Asian housewife forced to kill her abusive husband, and as received handsome reviews.
Her groom, meanwhile, who despite his family heritage initially found it difficult breaking into Bollywood, is now one of the highest-paid male stars in India, feted by both the press and hordes of screaming female fans who seem to know wherever he goes.
Any marriage between Bollywood heroes is big news in India but the number of column centimetres dedicated to "Abhiash's" wedding preparations has been remarkable even by the standards of film star-obsessed India.
Since the engagement, the country's myriad movie magazines, gossip columns, celebrity websites and chat forums have been talking about little else. Publicists have found it difficult to garner interest in their up-coming releases, tantrum-prone starlets have been sidelined by the celebrity reporters who are determined above all to get the ultimate scoop on just one thing: "Abhiash" and their marriage.
No detail of the wedding preparations, be they the colour of the table cloths or rumours that the groom will wear a golden crown once favoured by Bengali princes, has been too small for the magazines to detail in all their lurid glory.
No snippet of information is too irrelevant to be billed as an exclusive scoop. Rumours of upset mother-in-laws, jilted ex-lovers, wedding day jitters fill the celebrity pages, usually with little evidence to back them up.
But such press attention has resulted in the Rai and Bachchan families going to extraordinary lengths to keep the details about their wedding as secret as possible and the Bachchan family residence has been turned into a fortress.
Around the string of bungalows which are situated on a prime spot of the exclusive Juhu Beach area of Mumbai, a giant wooden wall has been built to keep fans and the long paparazzi lenses out.
Guests have reportedly been sworn to silence about arrangements for the today's Hindu ceremony that is the culmination of three days of celebrations.
- Independent
The ceremony
* The groom and his family march to a covered canopy where the bride awaits.
* The father symbolically gives his daughter, in jewellery representing Laksmi, goddess of wealth, to the groom.
* He is showered with flower petals by his bride.
* The couple exchange garlands and sit under a wedding canopy.
* No Hindu marriage is deemed complete without the presence of the sacred fire known as Agni.
* The groom places a bright red powder on his bride's forehead, ties a sacred thread to her and accepts her hands in a ritual called Pani Grahanam.
* The couple take seven steps around the fire, exchanging sacred vows.
- Independent
