Paparazzi vs. Naraaz papa

Almost always, Amitabh Bachchan is a picture of dignity and correctness. Whatever faults one may find in him (especially his relations with badland bhaiyyas), you have to admit the man is all class. Which is why his media-blackout policy for the big fat family wedding surprises me. Bachchan has done enough time in the industry to know that Bollywood stars cannot cut the world out when there’s a marriage, especially not when the alliance is between the nation’s top stars. He would have known all along there would be hundreds of photographers surrounding Prateeksha and Jalsa, and that’s exactly what’s happened. So why did he allow this cat and mouse game to go on, completely beats me.

Sold out the shaadi?
Which is the reason why a popular theory doing the rounds is that Big B has sold the rights for the wedding to an international celeb mag, or a television network. When examined logically, this makes sense, this would explain all the hush-hush and locked iron doors, and image-busting Volvo buses. And if indeed this is the case, then I don’t understand why the mega star isn’t announcing that to the public… once we know the pics have been sold to another media brand, most of us will back off from desperate photography, and wait for the real stuff to appear. My own hunch though is that Bachchan might not have sold his son’s biggest day, the entire clan appears too conservative and superstitious to do things like that. And if my reading is right, I cannot fathom this privacy nonsense, it’s Ash’s wedding for god’s sakes, we WOULD be interested. If Abhishek had married a Dippanita whatever, the entire media would have been outside Alistair Pereira’s door today.

The ugly skirmish
And so, the inevitable happened; blood on the lawns of Prateeksha. And I neither blame the photographers (it’s their job to shoot exclusive pictures), and nor do I blame the black cats (they are paid to act before they think, they are edgy kind of guys, and a situation of a hundred photographers surrounding Abhiash would have been against orders from the top). Although Bachchan has graciously apologised, he must accept that the fault lies with his crazy blackout policy, it was a time bomb waiting to explode. All he had to do is what Rahul Dravid did on his wedding day: finish the ceremony in private, and then emerge from the house so that the photographers are awarded with their Kodak moment. And all would have gone home happy.

Holy instructions?
It’s possible one of the manglik-reversing sadhus commanded the blackout happens, then things make enormous sense, of course. Good luck, Abhiash.