On the TV I see big, solid GATES. A few moments pass by, but the picture is unwavering. Still the same GATES. GATES which open and close, leaving me with glimpses of a few, well-dressed people, gathered inside. The camera slowly pans over the large GATES, searching for some orifice, through which to peer. A few minutes pass, and we have some audio now. The newsperson (I am assuming that it is a newsperson who has the time to stand around and watch GATES open and close) tells us that Sushmita Sen is entering. I can’t see her. All I can see is those dratted GATES. Oh, wait, oh wait, is Kajol there too ? And Ajay Devgun ? I can barely contain my excitement ! I can’t see her (but never mind). These revelations have sent my hearbeat racing. The TRP’s must be going through the roof at the sight of those now familiar GATES.

Oh, such entertainging television this ! Who would have thought that television footage starring big, solid GATES could be so exciting ? A whole movie, minutes and minutes of it starring THE GATES ? Those TALL, DARK, HANDSOME GATES ? I anticipate juicy details – how and when THE GATES open and close, who they let in and who they let out, what they contain ! What are their lives like; is there sorrow, is ther joy ? Do they celebrate with the Bachchan’s in their big moment of joy ? Did Abhishek baba as a boy, swing from these very GATES ? I am sure that THE GATES of the Bachchan mansion will spill all since their owners have been so very un-forthcoming, and we the plebian TV watching folk will have to satisfy ourselves with the saga of THE BACHCHAN GATES, instead of the Bachchan’s themselves. There is no lack of big, opague GATES in Mumbai – why don’t the TV channels stand outside more GATES more often ?

So, what exactly is going on ? Is this some new life-changing experience being documented for eternity on television ? Some new form of Nirvana to be achieved by whilig away the day outside big brown (or black), large, opaque GATES trying to get glimpses of the chosen few ? If you haven’t guessed already, this is the spectacle of the Abhishek-Aishwarya wedding being telecast over television, and beamed halfway across the world, to chai-sipping, desi folk like me. And lest you misunderstand, the wedding isn’t actually going live on television, rather it’s our voyeuristic anticipation of it that it. While the Bachchan family insist that it is a small, private affair, (and get 9 bus-loads of baraatis to prove it), the media is just as determined to make it a public one. Thus, mediapersons and their cameras hang around all day (and all night ?) like hungry dogs waiting around to be thrown a bone.

We hear a ball-by-ball account of the goings-on outside the gate. Ofcourse since this is a private affair, no-one is allowed inside. Every time the gate opens, and closes we know. The faces of the security guards standing outside the Bachchan bungalow are now so familiar, I could probably identify them out of vast crowds. The 9 buses which will contain the baraatis are loading up now, we are told. Sure enough, outside THE GATES, curtained, air-conditioned buses draw up, and corpulent, silk-swathed Punjabi aunties with high BMIs, and uncles in pagdis start boarding.

The next day I switch channels to Star News to see more intriguing footage. A flower bedecked car, at the head of a long cavalcade of expensive imported cars, is vending it’s way down a narrow road. People and camera-weilding persons on foot, run alongside, peeering in through the car windows, and the windshield. The car makes agonizingly, slow progress. The voice-over tells me this is Aishwarya’s bidaai, and Amitabh Bachchan and Co. are driving their new bahu home. I fear that that the speed at which they are going, it’s going to take all day. I switch off the TV, turn over and go back to sleep. I’ll check back tomorrow – they should have reached by then.