Wedding wows as prince Shivraj ties knot in style

The Shahenshah of Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan, gave it a miss, and King Khan didn't turn up either, as was rumoured, much to the chagrin of celebrity gawkers. Sting and Mick Jagger came as baraatis, but didn't strike a musical note. But the royal nuptials of Shivraj Singh of Jodhpur and Gayatri Kumari of Askot didn't lack colour - with royals from all over the world converging at Rambagh Palace to celebrate the blue- blooded match in style.

Among those who came to bless the newlyweds was Nepal's former crown prince Paras Shah and former Bhutan King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, Yaswant Singh of Alwar, and Brig. Bhawani Singh, Kumari Padmini Devi and Diya Kumari of Jaipur.

At 5.30 pm, Prince Shivraj's buggy went to get his bride in a spectacular wedding procession which was brought all the way from Jodhpur. Leading the procession was a royal elephant, followed by Manganiyar and Langa folk musicians, horses from the royal stables and the lavajma, who carried the royal flag and insignia.

The baraat was welcomed by the bride's father, Bhanuraj Singh Pal. But it being a typical Rajput wedding, the bride and the groom weren't allowed to see each other till the pheras well after midnight.

The baraat had some tense moments when one of the buggy horses stood up on its hind legs - bringing back horrific memories of the prince's head injury in 2005, when he fell off his horse in a polo accident. But the wedding festivities resumed with the horse being pacified.

Earlier, the baraat arrived at the Kanakpur railway station, 15 km away from Jaipur's main station in a bluecoloured train decorated with marigold flowers. A red carpet was rolled out for the 350 guests.  It is a great day for us. Please pray for our yuvraj and bahurani , said Gaj Singh, the bridegroom's father. He added that his son's wedding wasn't a celebrity affair but a traditional one.

We come from a traditional society and are following traditions to the hilt. The baraatis were whisked away to the five luxury hotels in nine deluxe buses.

For the groom's guests, we have booked rooms in Sheraton Rajputana, Country Inn, Hotel Ramada, Park Plaza and ITC Fortune hotel in Jaipur, said Sanjay Bhansali, media coordinator of the wedding. The bridegroom, who arrived in Jaipur on Wednesday, is staying in Hotel Rambagh Palace, whereas the bride and her family are staying in Hotel Mahal Khandela, he added.

Apart from the wedding card, the guests were issued passes as well. The dress code specified for men was sherwani and achkan.

The female guests were told to wear saris and lehengas. Hotel Rambagh Palace was turned into a fortress with over a 100 private guards taking over the premises. Firecrackers were seen going off at the wedding festivities, and the sound of drumbeats resonated outside.

The media camping outside waited eagerly for Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani's arrival but in vain. Industrialists Kumar Manglam Birla and Anil Agarwal of Vedanta were spotted going in though, as were Rajasthan's CM Ashok Gehlot, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jaswant Singh as well as actors Kabir Bedi, Riya Sen, Raima Sen, Munmun Sen and Dame Judi Dench.

The groom's father, Maharaj Gaj Singh ( centre) leads the baraat to the wedding venue; former king of Nepal Gyanendra Singh, one of the guests, added to the wedding's royal quotient.


Heirloom Add Regal Touch

NO DESIGNER outfits, please, we are bluebloods! That seemed to be the message sent out by Shivraj Singh and Gayatri Kumari in their choice of the wedding attire.

Gayatri wore a red antique lehenga that was taken out from the Mehrangarh Fort museum in Jodhpur. Jaipur- based artisan Sandeep Mangalbhai took over two months to restore the antique gold work on the lehenga.

The bride wore nine pieces of jewellery, but the one that caught everybody's eye was a handcrafted moon- shaped modh ( an ornament usually worn on a turban) made of gold thread, polki and Basra pearls, that she flaunted on her forehead.

Shivraj's wedding achkan was fashioned out of Banarasi fabric. Jodhpuri trousers, a kamarbandh with a golden buckle carrying Jodhpur's coat of arms and a saffron saafa completed his outfit.

Something for all

THE MORE than 100 items on the wedding spread was a balancing act between the Jodhpuri kitchen of the groom's family and the Awadhi gastronomic tradition of the city to which the bride belongs.

So, famous Marwari dishes such as Bajre ka Soita and Lal Maas prepared by cooks who had come from Jodhpur shared the spotlight with Awadhi kebabs, kormas and qaliyas.


No Badshah At Royal Do

JAIPUR was abuzz with the rumour that Shah Rukh Khan was to perform at the royal wedding on Thursday, but that turned out to be a case of wishful thinking.

Instead, the star performers at the wedding - where Mick Jagger and Sting put in cameo appearances on the stage - were a group of Manganiyar singers who had also performed in the reality TV show, India's Got Talent.

Princess whose horoscope matched

THE media has gone to town with news of the wedding of Shivraj Singh, everyone wants to know more about Gayatri Kumari Pal, the woman the scion of Jodhpur's royal family is marrying.

Gayatri Kumari, 22, whose family once ruled a principality named Askot in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, grew up in Lucknow and was an undergraduate student in Jaipur, where she's now studying computer graphics and animation in a privately run academy.

The daughter of Bhanuraj Singh and Neelam Pal, Gayatri also has a younger brother whose details are not known.

The wedding's publicist, Sanjay Bhansali, said the match was fixed after Shivraj and Gayatri's horoscopes matched. After getting their families approval, the two started seeing each other, Bhansali said. Their courtship lasted for a year and a half, and the two got engaged on March 30. A source close to the family said when Gayatri first met her future mother- in- law, Hemlata Raje, the two hit it off magnificently.

The maharani found her to be a vivacious girl who was full of life and very confident about herself, the source said.

Shivraj had just taken charge of his family's hospitality business when he suffered a terrible head injury and slipped into a coma after a fall in a polo match in Jaipur in February 2005. In the expert hands of an American occupational therapist, Shivraj staged a comeback, but his road to recovery has been bumpy. His movements and speech still haven't regained their old fluency. His family believes the marriage will hasten the healing process - those close to Shivraj say he has shown much improvement during his courtship with Gayatri.

Unburdened by these thoughts, Gayatri, who was with her family at Jaipur's Mahal Khandela Hotel, a heritage haveli of a 16th- century Rajput chieftain, danced her heart out in a yellow sari during her haldi ceremony on Monday.