HE IS a scion of the Nehru- Gandhi family, while she comes from a traditional Bengali Brahmin family. They may not have the buzz of the WillKat wedding, but Varun Gandhi’s marriage with Yamini Roy Choudhury is likely to get its share of the spotlight.
The wedding on March 6 is supposed to be a religious affair and the Kanchi Mutt in Varanasi is the place chosen for the auspicious ceremony. Sources close to Varun’s mother and BJP MP Maneka Gandhi said she has requested Kanchi Shankaracharya Swami Jayendra Saraswati to perform the rituals at the wedding of her son — a BJP national secretary and Pilibhit MP.
“Kanchi Mutt in Varanasi is the choice of Yamini’s mother who has been visiting the place for a long time. She has also done most of the shopping for her daughter’s wedding from Varanasi,” a source said.
Going by the initial plans, seven priests from the Kanchi Mutt would be travelling to Delhi, from where they would accompany Varun and Maneka to Varanasi.“ Maneka has asked Varanasi mayor Kaushalendra Singh to take care of the arrangements. The temple would also be renovated for the occasion,” the source added.
Varun’s wedding to Yamini would be the first one in close to a century when a member of the Nehru- Gandhi family would be marrying a Brahmin. The last time it happened was when Jawaharlal Nehru married Kamala Kaul, a Kashmiri Brahmin in 1916.
Varun’s grandmother Indira, father Sanjay, uncle Rajiv and cousin Priyanka had all married outside the Brahmin community. Yamini, a vegetarian, is the daughter of film critic Aruna Vasudev, the founder- president of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.
Yamini hails from Santiniketan where Varun’s grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had studied for some time. Yamini runs a graphic designing studio in Delhi called Incarnation. She has done a professional course in fine arts and graphics from Sorbonne University in Paris after her graduation in philosophy from St Stephen’s College, Delhi.
While Varun is taking the plunge, his cousin and Congress general secretary Rahul, who is 10 years elder, is still unmarried. “We hope Rahul will follow in Varun’s footsteps and marry a Brahmin. If he marries outside the community, a lot of questions could be raised,” a Congress leader said.
Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2011. MTNPL. All rights reserved.