The curtain fell on the wedding of the century. Indians, whose Instagram feeds and TV screens were inundated for months, will finally be able to move on. For over 134 days, the union of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, both 29, made headlines. The youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man and head of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, married the daughter of another Indian billionaire, Viren Merchant, CEO of Encore Healthcare, on July 12. The final reception in Mumbai on Sunday, July 14, concluded months of festivities.
The Ambanis turned the wedding into an extraordinary communications operation, a showcase for their immense wealth and global influence. The bride-to-be shared her love story in the pages of Vogue magazine. The heir gave an "exclusive" tour of his animal sanctuary to a TV channel, and the family was shown distributing food to villagers. "Asia's richest man is hosting a wedding, and the world must watch," summed up historian Anirudh Kanisetti in The Print, an Indian news site.
The celebrations kicked off in March in Jamnagar, the family's hometown in Gujarat, before heading off on a cruise to Italy, where the billionaires' antics annoyed the locals. Rihanna, Justin Bieber, the Backstreet Boys and Katy Perry performed for the guests. Tech leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates; former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson; Bollywood demigods Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan; and even two Kardashian sisters (Kim and Khloé) were on the guest list. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made an appearance alongside the Ambanis on July 13. Footage broadcast by local channels showed Modi with Mukesh Ambani, close to the government, offering his blessing to the newlyweds.
The Ambanis embody the economic clout of South Asia and its new capitalists, breaking with the country's socialist tradition. Mukesh Ambani inherited from his father a flourishing industrial enterprise in the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors. A formidable businessman, he then diversified into telecommunications at the expense of his brother Anil, whose downfall he did not hesitate to bring about. He challenged the American retail giants, Amazon and Walmart, taking advantage of policies that largely favored him. Over the past decade, his fortune and fame have increased tenfold. Symbolic of his wealth, the man who represents India's new royalty has acquired a 27-story skyscraper in Mumbai, which reportedly cost over $1 billion (€919 million) to build.
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