Setting aside all their combined and individual work-related worries, Akshay Kumar and his fiancee of one month Twinkle Khanna decided to tie the knot at a simple ceremony on the night of 17 January, 2001. A look back.
The marriage which was attended by fifty very close friends and immediately family of the couple took place at the house of the bride’s closest friend in the suburbs of Mumbai.
“Yeah, it was literally a case of chat-mangni-pat-biyah for us,” laughed Akshay joyfully on the day after he finally became a beaming bridegroom.
The marriage was originally supposed to take place on 5 February. “But we decided not to wait any longer. We saw no need to. Tina(Twinkle) and I love each other and wanted to be man and wife as soon as possible. So we decided to go ahead and take the plunge before she left for Bangalore the next morning to judge the Femina-Miss India beauty pageant.”
Not even the couple’s closest friends were aware of their impending marriage plans. Until late in the evening Akshay was shooting at Filmalaya Studio in the suburbs of Mumbai with Amitabh Bachchan and Raakhee. From there he quietly went home, changed into his designer-outfit (which had to be rush-completed to meet the groom’s sudden new deadline for the wedding) and drove down to the residence of Twinkle’s best friend in the suburbs of Mumbai.
“Nobody was aware of our plans, not even us,” Akshay laughs. “Even (the late politician) Amar Singhji was informed at the eleventh hour. But he kindly consented to attend the ceremony.”
Amar Singh is a close friend of the bride’s mother. Another close friend of Dimple Kapadia who attended the flash wedding was Raj Kapoor’s eldest daughter Reema Kapoor. Dimple has remained closely associated with the Kapoors ever since she made her debut in RK’s Bobby 30 years ago.
Another close friend of Twinkle who made it a point to attend the wedding was Aamir Khan. He had missed the couple’s engagement last month since he was shooting in Sydney Australia.
When Twinkle got through to Aamir on his cellphone at around 4 in the afternoon, Aamir was asleep. “He thought he was dreaming when I told him to come for the wedding the same evening,” chortled Twinkle happily on the morning after the wedding, still wearing her wedding bangles from the night before. “I don’t feel any different from what I did yesterday,” mused Twinkle. “I like the sound of ‘My Husband’ on my tongue. Otherwise everything feels the same. But my husband says he feels like a completely new person .”
Aamir Khan and his wife Reena were present. The bride’s father Rajesh Khanna looked happy and at peace with himself. The only other invitee from the film industry was director Suneel Darshan. Early on the morning after the wedding Akshay dropped his newly married wife at the airport and attended a shooting for an ad.
The sudden wedding triggered off a tizzy of speculation and misinformation in the press. Protests Akshay, “Why not suddenly? It had to take place today or tomorrow or the next day. So why not today? So we had an elaborate engagement and a lowkey wedding. So what? We’ll have a lavish wedding reception. We decided to inform everyone about our plans in the evening. Now I’m so happy that I went through with it. Marriages are made in heaven. But I feel being married is like being in heaven. We felt this was the right day, and it happened. We are going to invite all our friends for the reception.”
