Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan tied the knot on June 3, 1973, in an intimate wedding ceremony held in Mumbai. Over the years, their wedding photos have frequently gone viral, capturing the public’s fascination with the iconic Bollywood couple. However, many might not know that Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Amitabh’s father and a legendary Hindi poet, shared some jaw-dropping insights about his son’s wedding in his autobiography, In the Afternoon of Time: An Autobiography by Harivansh Rai Bachchan.
As reported by Rediff, Harivansh Rai Bachchan revealed that the wedding was an intimate affair, with only a handful of guests present at the ceremony. He revealed the wedding took place at one of the couple’s friend’s place on the top floor of the Skylark building in Malabar Hills. He added the baraatis consisted only five people, two of which were the poet himself and political leader, Sanjay Gandhi. He added that Jaya’s family did not seem upbeat about the wedding.
“Jaya’s parents wanted the marriage to be conducted in the Bengali manner, to which we had no objection. The first stage was the var-puja, the veneration of the groom, which involved Jaya’s father coming to Mangal (Amitabh’s residence) with gifts and conducting a small ceremony; I then reciprocated by doing the same for the bride at Beach House. I noticed something quite unexpected at Beach House: nobody in the family, apart from Jaya, showed even the slightest trace of pleasure,” he wrote in the book.
He recalled that Amitabh’s Haldi, which would traditionally be a chirpy affair, was done in a hushed quiet. “The joy that was so confined by this constriction spilled out in a tingling of the spine and a tearful glimmering of the eye, especially in Teji’s case,” referring to Amitabh’s mother, Teji Bachchan. He added that even the neighbours were unaware about Amitabh’s wedding, revealing that the family had lied to them about the decoration in the house. “When the neighbours asked what the long decorative strings of light bulbs signified, we explained that Amitabh would be shooting a film here the next night,” he said.
Harivansh Rai Bachchan shared the baraat was welcomed ‘without fanfare.’ When they reached the mandap, they saw Jaya Bachchan, then known as Jaya Bhaduri, decked up as a bride. Amitabh’s father noticed a ‘bashful shyness’ on her face, and could tell that she was genuinely shy and not acting.
Once the ceremony concluded, the poet wrote that the ‘five baratis had dinner and set off home’, leaving behind both the families to complete the remaining ceremonies. “Before we left, I embraced the father of my new daughter-in-law and congratulated him on getting a son-in-law like Amit, expecting him to say the same in respect of Jaya. But he said, ‘My family is utterly ruined.'”
It has been 51 years since Amitabh and Jaya got married. The couple welcomed two children, Shweta Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan. Shweta is married to Nikhil Nanda and has two children, son Agastya Nanda and daughter Navya Naveli Nanda, whereas Abhishek is married to Aishwarya Rai. They share a daughter named Aaradhya Bachchan.
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