‘My family is utterly ruined’: What Jaya Bachchan’s father told Harivansh Rai Bachchan after her wedding to Amitabh Bachchan

Assuming that Amitabh Bachchan’s popularity, which had by then skyrocketed with the successes of films like Namak Haram, Saudagar, and Zanjeer, would attract huge crowds, the Bachchans decided to keep the wedding subdued. Accordingly, “Jaya’s family decided not to hold the ceremony at their flat in Beach House but at a friend’s place on the top floor of the Skylark building in Malabar Hills,” Harivansh Rai noted in his autobiography. Even Amitabh’s neighbours were unaware of the event. The only people the Bachchans invited were their relative Jagdish Rajan and family, and the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her family, since Indira and Amitabh’s mother, Teji Bachchan, were confidantes. However, Indira couldn’t attend and sent her son Sanjay Gandhi instead.

“Jaya’s parents wanted the marriage to be conducted in the Bengali manner, to which we had no objection. The first stage was the var-puja, the veneration of the groom, which involved Jaya’s father coming to Mangal (Amitabh’s residence) with gifts and conducting a small ceremony; I then reciprocated by doing the same for the bride at Beach House. I noticed something quite unexpected at Beach House: nobody in the family, apart from Jaya, showed even the slightest trace of pleasure,” Harivansh wrote.

Following the subdued Haldi ceremony, the Bachchans went to the Skylark building, where they were received without any fanfare. “We went up in the lift, Jaya was in her bridal adornment, and for the first time, I saw a bashful shyness on her face and realised what a particular aspect of beauty it is.”

After the ceremony, which concluded late into the night, the baratis (groom’s guests) departed post dinner, leaving only the immediate family. “Before we left, I embraced the father of my new daughter-in-law and congratulated him on getting a son-in-law like Amit, expecting him to say the same in respect of Jaya. But he said, ‘My family is utterly ruined,'” Harivansh noted.

Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri tied the knot on June 3, 1973, and they have two children — columnist-author Shweta Bachchan Nanda and actor-producer Abhishek Bachchan.