Nagpur:
Two thousand guests at the wedding ceremony, 15000 plus at the VVIP reception and another one lakh at another reception planned for Saturday, the numbers story does not end there.
As the banquet lawns at the Vidarbha Cricket Association on the outskirts of Nagpur lit up at sun down, 17 SPG protectees attended the reception of BJP president Nitin Gadkari's son, Nikhil, who married Rutuja Pathak, daughter of Shubhangi and Purushottam Pathak, on Thursday. Not just that, over 40 invites were sent out to VIPs with black cat commandos in tow, not to mention at least over a 150 guests with Z category security.
The stage wore an elegant floral white look, complementing the maroon and red the bride and groom wore for the evening. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was among the first VVIP on the stage, and other Chief Ministers from BJP ruled states like Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa, Chhatisgarh CM Raman Singh and MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan marked their attendance.
There was also a sprinkle of industrialists with the Hinduja brothers, liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Rahul Bajaj. Though both the sparring Ambani siblings stayed away, warring cousins Raj and Uddhav Thackeray came with their better halves, carefully timing their entry so they would not inadvertently bump into each other.
Amar Singh was among the last to arrive but his arrival with Jaya Prada added to the cross section of politicians who virtually took over the evening in Orange city with the 'lal battis' from BJP leaders like L K Advani, Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Manohar Parrikar, Prakash Javdekar,Sidhu, Smriti Irani, to Praful Patel and Maharashtra's Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Madhur Bhandarkar, Poonam Dhillon, Hema Malini and Shatrughan Sinha- perhaps the only bollywood connection. A separate buffet for the VVIPs and another one for the VIPs. On the menu, a mix of south Indian, Italian, Chinese, though the Punjabi spread dominated the buffet.
From a number of private jets lined up at the airport to over 1400 policemen on bandobast duty at the reception venue alone, it was easily Nagpur's most gigantic event, that's only set to get bigger with the one lakh plus guests expected to attend Saturday's reception that will start around noon and go on well into the evening.
No one is putting a price tag on the event yet, but the Gadkari-Pathak wedding has sure brought together a whole lot of firsts to 'santra-nagari' or Orange City.