Bengaluru: A fairytale wedding of Janardhana Reddy's daughter

Bengaluru: Two life-size elephant statues flanked the gates of the Reddy wedding to welcome the 50,000 guests who passed through it.  Bengaluru’s Palace Grounds, already an abode of royalty, was transformed into a gold-drenched Reddy ‘kingdom’, with a towering replica of Hampi’s Virupakshi temple paying tribute to the Vijayanagar kingdom.

The wedding feast included over a 100 South Indian delicacies, film stars from the Kannada, Telegu and Tamil industries were all spotted among the guests, who were entertained by a bevy or artists from across the world.

In short, the wedding of mining baron Janardhana Reddy's daughter with Rajeev Reddy, son of Hyderabad-based businessman Vikram Deva Reddy certainly lived up to the all the hype.

The idea was to recreate the rural charm of Bellary (Reddy's acknowledgment of his roots) here in Palace Grounds, as the setting for the marriage ceremony, although the unmitigated opulence of the affair was a far cry from Reddy’s rustic childhood.

“I don’t think anyone has seen a wedding like this in this lifetime. I feel like I’m witnessing a day in Krishna Deva Raya’s court. She’s the luckiest daughter in the world,” said an emotional B. Honnuramma, MP Sriramulu’s mother. It is like a wedding for kings, she added. Sriramulu echoed his mother’s emotions. “Iam so happy, I don’t even know how to convey it. She is like a daughter to me.”

The blushing bride, dressed in an intricately designed gold and red saree and matching gold and diamond jewellery was a sight to behold. A jubilant Mr Reddy gave his daughter away in a shower of flowers as family members stood glowingly around the ritual fire.

A separate stage was built for the traditional ceremony in the massive hall, flanked by tall statues of Lord Balaji and Lord Venkateshwara who gazed down at the guests paying their respects to the young couple. The ceremony was performed by eight priests brought from the Tirupati Thirumala temple.

The wedding feast was one to remember, with more than 105 traditional vegetarian south Indian dishes served on a large spread of banana leaves, the guests were certainly well-fed! Simple but delicious, quintessential southern dishes like Holige, a type of flatbread, Tomato Dal, Chamagadda fry and lemon rice made it to the menu too.

“The last three days have kept us busier than we have ever been. Our estimated guests are half a lakh and we have cooked more than a couple of thousand kilograms of food! ” exclaimed Raghu Nayak, manager of NCS Caterers, a city based catering company.

The guests were also served fruits and traditional Indian sweets like jalebi and special payasam as desert. The return gifts, in little purple and red bags that contained coconuts with betel leaves and a box of traditional sweets, were given away.

Actors Vijay and Yash, along with politicians BS Yedurappa, Shobha Karandlaje, Jagadish, senior actor and politician H M Ambarish, B.Z Zameer Ahmed Khan, Cheluvaraya Swamy, KPCC President and Home Minister Dr G Parameshwar were present at the morning ceremony and was seen congratulating the newlyweds.

Reddys’ wedding causes traffic snarls
Traffic was thrown out of gear near the main gate of Palace Grounds on Vasanth Nagar main road and approach junctions such as Mount Carmel Road as VVIP and VIPs rushed to the flamboyant wedding of the Reddy family.

Though there was traffic police personnel specially deputed for smooth commuting into the wedding venue and out, the cops had tough time with commuters slowing down at the junction to get a glimpse of the main gate where heavy decorations were put up.

Adding to the traffic vows, when the state home minister G. Parameshwara and other ministers and VIPs including B.S. Yeddyurappa, all of them came in convoys, traffic was hit. Commuters were stopped at several nearby junctions for long stop times to facilitate the convoy movements in and out of the wedding venue.

Though there was inconvenience to a lot of commuters, once they crossed the venue of the wedding, most of their jaws dropped seeing the grandeur and fervour of the mining baron’s daughter.