What to make of Ambani wedding?

The most peculiar wedding Irsquove attended obviously for work was of a male movie star with multiple generations in Mumbai showbiz which explained his Bollywood guests He was however getting married into a family of bureaucrats if Irsquom not mistakenUpon entering the fivestar venue then I was hit by a surreal pandemonium among the bridersquos starstruck inviteesmdashtotally running around crazy flashing their phones at the groomrsquos incoming famous guestsI donrsquot think they cared at all for the marrying couple who are inevitably chief guests at their own wedding noThe only other times yoursquore publicly the centre of such attention is probably at your birth deathmdashneither of which yoursquoll knowmdashand the birthdays betweenThe best weddings wersquove been to for pleasure of course is of friends chiefly surrounded by other select friends and the groom and bridersquos familiesWith closest buddies conventional wisdom suggests you stick to company thatrsquos not furthest ahead in their socialeconomic station in lifeOr you do and it probably helps with professional success of coursemdashbut it could leave you unhappy if ever made aware of your own place in an imagined hierarchyUnless you were friends forever schoolcollegechildhood or before they skyrocketed so to say Then it doesnrsquot matter and you feel proud save reasons to feel otherwise Social equals generally guarantee emotional easeIn South Asia sadly for some who canrsquot afford it a shaadi as a party for social display is as much about flex as it is about friends amp fam You mayrsquove noticed this increasingly so with your own friends amp famWas the monthslong wedding of industrialist Anant Ambani 29mdashwith Nita an indefatigable eventplanner for a loving mom and the genteel generous Mukesh as dadmdashthen an anomalyNo more than when the Ambanis unveiled the overthetop Antilia the most expensive private residence in the world in 2010Antilia was still the first major property that MukeshmdashAsiarsquos richest man nowmdashgathered all his resources to own and call his home unlike private islands elsewhere or multiple mansions overseas thenJust as Anant is the last among his kids getting married after all evidently pulling all stops thereforeIn the past wersquove heard about LN Mittal booking the Palace of Versailles for a shaadibanquet hall or Subroto Roy apparently hiring Rajkumar Santoshi as weddingvideographer for his kidrsquos shaadi The Ambanis instead lined up on stage Katy Perry Rihanna Bieber RemihellipWhatrsquos the impact of this on western popular culture I notice on the dating app Bumble a white woman on ldquotravel moderdquo which means shersquos not in Bombay but swiping away in this city with the instruction on her profile ldquoI want an Ambani weddingrdquo HuhGroom Anant himself I suppose would get mobbed if he stepped out on the streets in India We found pedestrians clicking selfies with him in Soho New York in June 2024 Something that may not have occurred a day before he began his ldquopreweddingrdquo celebrations back in March at his oilrefinery township of Jamnagar in GujaratAnd thatrsquos how fandoms work with celebrities Who in my books are usually wellknown artistes given works consumed by the public That in turn recognises those faces primarily from the screenHence a Bollywood star or a top cricketer hardly a hockeykabaddi player is a celebrity as is some yogi wrestler even a YouTuber asking secondrate questions to public figuresAll of whom were guestsfriends of all ages often seemingly BFFs at the forefront in the Ambani wedding Making me wonder what these fine blokes from another world could have so much in common with serious businessmen who usually engage in deeply sedentary jobs managinggrowing wealthOkay businessmen can be fans too Besides patrons of arts The Ambanis have been amazing as the latter lately for Mumbai a crumbling city otherwisemdashwhat with the Bandra Kurla Complex itself and the worthiest selfnamed public institution NMAAC as a genuine gift to the cityrsquos arts that will remain a joy foreverThat apart and stepping back into a wedding opened up for masspublic consumptionmdashwhat if we look at money power and fame as three quadrantsmeasures of social successDoes that make pure celebrity even by association an essential aspiration stillmdasheven when yoursquore unbelievably loaded and consequently influentialWe know how this is beneficial for politicians running for public office What about industrialists Or is lsquocelebrityrsquo simply a class that naturally mingles with top echelons of money power organically feeding off each other as social peersI donrsquot know if yoursquove had these conversations even while relentlessly commentinggossiping over a wedding that lasted four and half monthsmdashwhile getting simultaneously inundated with voluntary live feeds pictures hence random memes and reels addictive enough to be worth an Instagram of coke on your phoneYou probably bought that consumable data from the Ambanis as well Maybe they knowmdashwhether or not content is king the king ought to be content tooWhat was the netgain for Indiarsquos richest Perhaps they donrsquot care simply adding to the republic of fun Either way none of our business of course At least itrsquos time we got back to workMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper