New Delhi, March 5, 2011
For the first time, Varun Gandhi spoke about his wedding, love and family to a media person in a candid and long conversation
It’s half past six at 14, Ashok Road. Come Saturday, three small chartered plane will fly special guest from the family to Varanasi. We go into Varun’s room, which is unusually quiet. Fresh out of a shower, but he doesn’t seem to be his happy self. The groom-to-be looks like his mind is troubled. He’s missing not having his maternal grandmother around. His dinner arrives – moong dal, boiled broccoli-babycorn vegetables. He insists I share as he digs into his early dinner. And we talk:
When I first met Yamini
When I first met Yamini through a common friend, she was studying at St Stephens College. She’s a simple, honest and sweet girl who doesn’t believe in showing off. She’s not materialistic and is a vegetarian, like me.
,,,,, And I fell in love
Way back in 2004, I would keep meeting Yamini now and then, would talk on the phone and felt there was something special here. One day I realized I am in love. I told everything to my nani and she told me such things are best shared with the person in question.
Confession of love
I prepared myself for the occasion and went to meet Yamini with a bouquet of roses. She took the flowers but said, “There’s no life in flowers plucked from the branches. So why start a relationship with something dead?” I realized there was she was special. The next day I landed at her place with a potted plant and we planted it in the garden. That little sapling is a tree today and is loaded with flowers. Just like our relationship.
When I proposed to her
We had been seeing each other for seven years. She would often come to my house and my nani, mother and aunt grew very fond of her. The best thing about her is she’s not demanding and always makes me feel stronger when she’s around. I asked me mother how she liked Yamini and she said she found her very cultured. Then I asked if she wanted Yamini as her daughter-in-law. I saw tears of joy in her eyes. I decided to propose to Yamini then itself. I am overjoyed that I am marrying my best friend.
She’s a great cook
She loves to be in the kitchen. I had gained so much weight eating what she made. It’s only for the wedding that I have managed to lose some weight. I love the arhar dal, baigan bharta, sweet-sour potatoes and baigan raita she makes. Although she’s not too fond of going out, but we both like the food at Taj Palace Hotel’s “Worth”, Imperial’s “Spice route”, and Ashok’s “Mashrabia”.
Rahul and Priyanka are not going to Varanasi
It would have been nice if Rahul and Priyanka attended the wedding. Rahul and I spoke on the phone and he told me he had a hairline fracture on his right foot. Priyanka is down with viral. She will host a dinner for the newly-weds at a farmhouse once she’s better. I personally invited my aunt Sonia for the wedding. We had to cancel the reception on March 8, otherwise she was sure to attend it.
No flute recital by Hari Prasad ji
Famous artiste Hari Prasad Chaurasia was to play the flue for my wedding but we had to cancel it because of my nani’s death. We were also supposed to attend the evening aarti, but aren’t anymore. We will come back to Delhi after the wedding ceremony in the morning. But we will surely go to Ma Anandmayi’s ashram there – it was she who had made my dadi agree to my mother and father’s wedding.
The wedding will be at Shankracharya ashram
The muhurat is at 7.12 am on March 6 and Shankracharya will preside over the ritual. Yamini will wear the same sari my mother wore for her wedding. The sari was then bought by my nani for Rs 1 lakh. I will wear a cream-coloured Rohit Bal ensemble.
People attending the wedding
Only 15 people from Delhi are attending the wedding – Yamini and her mother, aunt and her child, my mother and aunt with her two kids, two of my childhood friends. Pandit Nehru’s cousin Ashok and Malti Nehru. People from Varanasi include several people from royal families.
About his nani
She was everything to me, more than a mother. I am happy I spent a lot of time during the last years of her life and took her to Florence, Italy – a place she always wanted to visit. When she breathed her last in AIIMS on February 28, her head was in my lap and I was holding her hand. I didn’t want her to go but that’s what God wanted. I hope she knows how much I love her.
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