The world's largest ever wedding banquet was hosted and paid for by Jayalalitha Jayaram, a movie star and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, India. The luncheon was attended by over 150,000 guests at the wedding of her foster son, V.N.Sudhakaran to N.Sathyalakshmi. The banquet was served by the coast in the state capital, Chennai, on 7 Sept 1995.
Jayalalithaa’s detractors draw attention to the wedding of her adopted son as an example of her extravagant show of wealth. Guinness Book of Records certifies the ensuing wedding banquet as the largest ever. TIME magazine, and many other newspapers in India observed that the ceremony was “a vulgar display of wealth”.
The politician, Jayalalitha Jayaram, is a former movie star who succeeded her companion, a still bigger star named M. G. Ramachandran, after he died as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State.
She has set new benchmarks for outlandishness in a country that has never lacked color in its politicians, building a personality cult and, her opponents say, a vast personal wealth.
That many in Tamil Nadu disagree was evident from the turnout for the wedding, which drew more than 150,000 people, many of them Jayalalitha supporters who were bused in from villages all across the state, some journeying a dozen or more hours. In a state where the per capita income is less than $400 a year, and 40 per cent of the population is illiterate, some of the poorest of the wedding guests seemed to be the least concerned about its cost.
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