The Media’s Anything But ‘Haldi’ Interest In Katrina-Kaushal’s Wedding

On  Saturday  images from Katrina Kaif and  Vicky Kaushal’s haldi ceremony went viral. It  once again raised the question of a far from healthy  interest shown by the  media in a  marriage that the couple ostensibly  wanted  to keep strictly private.

The  shocking truth is, the entire charade  of privacy was orchestrated from behind the scenes  by expert marketing teams.

A  filmmaker who is close to  both Vicky and Katrina says, “Don’t you know, the  best way for a wedding to   be splashed across the  media platforms is  to  maintain a no-trespassing  stance. The more  you say you  don’t want  your wedding to be covered, the  more it will be covered.”

Apparently there was  never any embargo on pictures taken by guests.

“Within hours of the ceremony the pictures were  put on the social  media  platform, threreby quashing all  talk of a private  ceremony,” the  filmmaker  reveals, adding that  every detail and then some fictionalized details were  leaked out by the  couple’s marketing team.

The  most prominent fantasy on the  VicKat  wedding was that they intended to have two ceremonies, one according to Hindu rituals the other a Christian ceremony. Over-zealous  portals even reported that  a special cake works lakhs of  rupees was baked for the  Church wedding.

The  filmmaker friend dismisses this as “baked  nonsense.”

“Some  cake makers  got publicity by  talking about the special cake  baked for  occasion. I didn’t see any cake  at  the wedding. There was  no  Church wedding, so there was  no question of cake.”

Then who was  giving out all those “inside details” about the imported berries in  the cake?A cake maker claiming to have  created the ultimate baking delight  for  the wedding, squealed, “The  official  cake pictures will be  released soon.”

We are still waiting.

Another report  could barely  contain its excitement as it  went into an imaginative overdrive :  “Wedding cake is a blue-and-white five-tier Tiffany wedding cake curated by a chef from Italy. It costs anything between Rs 3-4 lakh. We also have the details of the food menu at the big fat Bollywood shaadi.”

 The report went to give us  a  detailed menu. According to invitees the real menu was far removed  from the one flashed  in the media.

A yesteryear actress  who was  a  superstar in her  heydays  and now remains  active  in  the public domain speaks  for a whole  section   of  the more rational  Indian public when she  says, “When I got married there was just a handful of curious magazines. Today there are  a hundred  entertainment portals each wanting to give  a wedding exclusive. There is  bound to be a whole lot of  fabrication. When we said we wanted  it to remain  private  we meant  it.  Today  there is nothing like privacy. Romance, shaadi , bachche aur divorce sab social media pe hota hai.”