Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has denied reports that his family performed Hindu religious ceremonies to lift a curse from Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai who is engaged to marry his son.
“Nothing like this ever took place,” the actor told this week’s edition of the Indian magazine “The Week,” calling the widespread media accounts of the ceremonies “intrusive and insensitive.”
The marriage of 33-year-old former Miss World Rai and 31-year-old heart-throb Abhishek Bachchan is expected to be Bollywood’s biggest wedding in years, but no official date has been announced.
Last November the family travelled with Rai to a temple on the banks of the sacred river Ganges in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi for what the Indian media reported were prayers to clear up mismatches in their stars.
According to media reports, the Bachchans — known as the first family of Bollywood for their dominance of the entertainment industry — carried out the ceremonies to offset the curse of being a “manglik” hanging over the green-eyed Rai.
Anyone who marries a “manglik,” which is determined by the position of Mars in a person’s horoscope, could fall ill and suffer a premature death, according to astrologers who play a huge role in the everyday lives of Indians.
Pictures of Rai and the Bachchans emerging from the temple were widely splashed in Indian newspapers and one well-known astrologer, Chandrasghekar Swami, said he “had advised both the families to perform this corrective puja (prayer).”
Astrologers also said Rai might have to marry a tree or an idol of the Hindu god Vishnu to rid herself of her reputedly unlucky status.
Indians have a tradition of matching horoscopes to ensure marital compatibility.
Asked why he had not come out earlier with a denial of the ceremonies, 64-year-old Bachchan, known simply as the “Big B” to legions of fans in the movie-mad nation, replied his job was “to act and I guess I am doing fine.”
“I guess people still want to see me on screen and I am lucky that even at my age I get work.”
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