Truth be told, Bollywood weddings can be a distant dream, but the proverbial grapes never get sour. Common men and women dream of lavish locations, extravagant cuisines, bespoke couture and luxurious jewellery – everyone wants to get married just like their favourite celebrities. They call them fairy-tale weddings for a reason. But beyond the veil of these elaborate affairs, there are pressures and struggles in celebrity relationships, just like any other marriage in the world. In this week’s #BigStory, we present an extensive perspective about Bollywood marriages. From predicting the future for couples like Vicky-Katrina and Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt, we also look back and decode the secret of successful relationships like Amitabh Bachchan-Jaya Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan-Gauri Khan and many more. There’s also the touchy topic of divorces and separations. Here’s the future, present and past of Bollywood’s biggest shaadis.
Predicting the future
Wedding season or not, celebrity couples and their matrimony is always as entertaining as a Rajkumar Hirani movie. One of Hirani’s heroes Vicky Kaushal and his dream girl Katrina Kaif, look like a match made in heaven. Going ahead, things are looking up for this celebrity duo, if you go by the predictions of Tarot reader Munisha Khatwani. Talking of the prospects of this powerful union she reveals, “Vicky and Katrina are ruled by number 7, which makes them very compatible. Going by the cards, he adores the floor she walks on, so he is obviously going to give her a lot of happiness. Speaking professionally, they will definitely become a power couple soon. I don’t see babies in near future, there sure is a gap. All in all, Vicky-Katrina will be an easy going couple who are going to become even more powerful.”
If Vicky-Katrina’s wedding vows had you feeling euphoric, brace yourself for when Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt tie the knot. That’s sure to be a band, baaja, baaraat and blitzkrieg fiesta. Come April 2022 and Ranbir-Alia could officially be united for infinity. So, what’s in store for them? “Alia and Ranbir are dedicated and committed to each other. She is already a part of the family. Ranbir is born on 28th September, so he is ruled by number 1, which makes him a very strong personality, in a positive way for Alia Bhatt. There is an age gap between them but, Ranbir is over protective about her. Alia and Ranbir will become an even bigger power couple than Vicky-Katrina. 2022 seems to be very favourable for them and they will definitely tie the knot next year,” predicts Munisha Khatwani.
Lessons learnt from heartburn
While love is larger-than-life in Bollywood, so are the break-ups, divorces and separations. Financial distributions and custody battles hit headlines, bringing in a lot of negative publicity. Bollywood is no stranger to divorces either, Hrithik Roshan and Sussane Khan parted ways despite being childhood sweethearts, while Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao’s sudden announcement of divorce left everyone shocked. Dr Harish Shetty, who has been involved in several celebrity relationships, throws light on why the cookie of love, sometimes crumbles. “All marriages are vulnerable and celebrity marriages are more so. Under the arclights and minute-to-minute scrutiny, marriages can get fragile. In a world where actors not only meet often, they bump into each other and hearts can fly and cross the forbidden lines quite easily. Some stray ones come back but many don’t.” Dr Shetty feels even the life-long romances aren’t built to last. He adds, “Childhood love stories are hyped and boredom can set in much before the marriage. In such cases, dreams can shatter very soon. When celebrity careers begin, the waters of life are still and flowing, but turbulence can kick in due to various reasons. The sudden success of one partner can cause a flurry of emotions, envy, sadness and frustration in the other. This may manifest in the form of partners not paying attention to each other, anger at the long absence of one partner and loneliness. The distance between loved ones increases in such cases and difficulties become exaggerated.”
Celebrated lawyer Mrunalini Deshmukh, who has been closely involved in several high-profile separations, reveals the main reasons for break-ups that she’s encountered. She says, “What I have seen is that there are three common reasons for most divorces as far as celebrities are concerned. Number one is that they have fallen out of love, secondly, there is a third person in the marriage and lastly, which is in extreme cases, violence is involved. More or less these parameters remain the same, whether it is Bollywood, Tollywood or another industry.”
So when a couple finally decides to call it quits, the money, aka alimony immediately comes into play. At times the battle is tainted with each party washing their dirty linen in public. “Celebrity divorces come with a lot of pressure because stars fear media involvement during court proceedings. They don’t want intimate details to leak out, be it their finances or fights. In Hrithik and Sussanne’s case, Sussanne had come to me as they had discussed divorce and she wanted to engage me. Seventy percent of celebrity separations are amicable and thirty percent are contested. They have too much to lose by way of a media trial and such private details attract the public attention at large,” adds Mrunalini.
In the recent years, we’ve witnessed shocking separations like Farhan Akhtar-Adhuna, Malaika Arora-Abraaz Khan, Samantha-Naga Chaitanya and Aamir-Kiran Rao to name a few.
Learning from the past
Legend has it that Harivansh Rai Bachchan had strictly opposed Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri travel to London without them being man and wife. In 1973, these two superstars made a promise of togetherness and rest as they say is history. Equally endearing is the love story of Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan, where the latter was still struggling for films in 1991 but found the partner of his dreams. When you look at these marriages through a microscopic lens, you’ll see they are laced with trials and tribulations, too. “Celebrities have a different kind of marriage than the common man. It’s for the simple reason that they are in the glare of limelight all the time and every single issue in the marriage is magnified many times over, because they live in a goldfish bowl. Sometimes the pressure on the goldfish bowl cracks the marriage. Hence when two celebrities get married they have to take cognizance of this and prepare themselves that they will not have a regular, straightforward marriage. There would be complications that they will have to cope with and manage,” opines Vivek Vaswani, who has been a close friend of SRK and Gauri.
From braving the storm of professional failures to fending off SRK’s outrageous link-ups and son Aryan’s recent controversy… the Khans have managed to sail through a lot. Vivek shares, “Shah Rukh and Gauri understood this right in the beginning. In fact they were looking forward to it, both were young, very good looking, ambitious and they realised that this would be a very, brittle goldfish bowl. That they have been married for so long is testimony to the fact that they have a powerful marriage, as many others do. Dharmendra-Hema Malini, Anil-Sunita Kapoor, Jitendra-Shobha Kapoor are all examples of a good marriage.”
Dr Shetty presents a different perspective on the punctures in a powerful marriage, “Powerful personalities are peaceful as long as they meet across temporary coffee tables and roofs of film sets. The game changes when the powerful 5000-watt couples live under the same roof. The cracks widen and the fountains of hate destroy the marriage.”
All’s well that ends well
Decades down the line, many Bollywood shaadis have stood the testament of time, with love remaining eternal and the tag of a ‘successful couple’ holding much value, of course, minor differences are swept under the carpet. Bollywood has thus taught us – love birds can learn to adapt and co-exist peacefully.
Whether it’s reel or real, a ‘happily ever after’ has a certain indelible charm. We all want to see our favourite stars love and be loved for a lifetime. Because their romance, feelings and emotions become a benchmark for our own feelings. And that’s why Bollywood shaadis will always seem like a match made in heaven.
