/> Marriage of the year? Looks more like the marriage of the century.

I cut through the appreciative screams to a flashback 9 years ago at a function to facilitate Anup Jalota where I saw Abhishek for the first time. He was with his mother, the ever -attentive son listening closely to every word she said.... Abhishek sat a row behind where I was placed along with one of my magazine editors.

To say that Abhishek was the cynosure of all eyes would be be no exaggeration. Everyone at the function was whispering about his debut in films and his association with Karisma Kapoor.

I asked my editor-friend for an introduction. But to my puzzlement he ignored the request. It took me years to realize that journalists guard their star contacts in Mumbai more fiercely than housewives protect their recipes.

Today I 'm proud and happy to day I'm very close to all the Bachchans, and Abhishek is a like a sibling, while the protective colleague has vanished. The lesson of humility that I learnt from such experiences is also an essential part of Abhishek's character.

There isn't a vain bone in his body. Abhishek is naturally and irreversibly gregarious. He gets annoyed when I call him the male Rani Mukherjee just as he calls me 'Uncle' to annoy me.

Anyone who tells you that Abhishek is vain or arrogant about being a Bachchan is a liar. Neither proud nor modest about his tremendous pedigree, Abhishek would have been who he's regardless of his surname. That mischievous glint in his eye often manifests itself in harmless pranks.

Abhishek can make you squirm with his jokes. Once in front of his dad he suddenly turned to me to ask, "Who's a better actor Amitabh Bachchan or Naseeruddin Shah?"

It was my turn to tell him to shut-up. Over the years that I've known this Bachchan bachcha we've established a comfort level that goes way beyond an ordinary journalist-actor relationship.

But he loves the company of his friends men and women, of which he has quite an impressive roster. You can often catch him with either a bunch of them or with one of them at home at a restaurant having a ball.

But there's a bleeding heart under that prankish, mischievous front that understands a friend's predicament immediately. Once when at 2.30 in the morning a very drunk very badly behaved male superstar was giving me major grief I ran into Abhishek in a hotel lobby. "What happened to you?" he asked immediately.

I told him. In no time at all Abhishek led the sizzled bratty superstar away from me. I breathed a sigh of relief, thanking the Stars above for stars like Abhishek down below.

I guess we are all born with our own karma. Some of us find the happiness we deserve. Today I see Abhishek dancing at his own wedding. He thinks he's the luckiest guy on earth.

Aishwarya Rai has come a long way too. Her climb up the steep ladder of stardom has been focussed, determined and surprisingly free of compromises.

Let me put it bluntly. Aishwarya never plays up to any of her heroes. I've seen the kind of leeway leading ladies allow the Big Guys just to remain in their good books. I've seen Salman Khan pushing pummelling a very hot and very sizzling leading lady right in front of me in my hotel room in Mumbai.

Aishwarya Rai doesn't believe in compromising with her conscience to remain successful. She fought on a matter principle with the mighty Khan triumvirate. First, of course Salman Khan whom she categorically told to get off while he still a ahead.

Then there was a difference of opinion with Shah Rukh Khan which cost her precious films with India's biggest superstar. Finally she opted out of Ketan Mehta's The Rising with Aamir Khan while Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel hopped skipped and jumped all around the Khan-driven project.

Co-stars are definitely a problem for Aishwarya. But if not the Khans then chalo, Martin Henderson hi sahi.

And if not Bollywood then Hollywood here she comes.

Om Puri and Saeed Jaffrey were two actors whose career back home in India acquired that extra edge after they appeared in British and American films. Not all of the work that they've done abroad is pivotal let alone exemplary.

Aishwarya is incapable of spewing malice or turning a situation to her own advantage.

Her magic mantra in life is, "I'll never do anything to compromise my family and my principles." No one knows about the threats and humiliations she was subjected to just because she said no to a certain relationship.

"All I know is, I've survived, and I'm moved on."

Aishwarya Rai is perfectionist. In a world where actresses generally believe in a chalta-hai attitude and run for marriage the minute the opportunity shows up, she strives to be the first real female superstar from Bollywood. What's wrong with that?

Aishwarya doesn't talk to the press as freely as some of her colleagues who love to spread themselves out thinly....on the satiny pages of papers and magazines. Many of the most powerful stars in Mumbai have eaten crow and patched up with the very magazines which have hurt them and their images the most.

Not Aishwarya Rai. The magazines which have been the nastiest to her are still smarting under the snub she has so effectively delivered them. They 've tried every trick in the book to make her speak. When they've failed to move her into submission they've damned her dreams.

She's done it. And how! The naysayers thought she couldn't. I suspected she could. In the right hands Ms Rai is always ready for and up to challenges. I've seen the performances Mani Rathnam, Rajiv Menon, Rituparno Ghosh and above all Sanjay Leela Bhansali had got out of her in the past.

Yup, given a chance she could have herself a histrionic blast. The only problem is the beauty. So overpowering is her image as the country's no.1 brand ambassadress that we tend to discount if not entirely dismiss her bravura attempts to get into character.

Once a look of haunted pensiveness passes through her immaculate face. "People said I giggled too much. What was I supposed to do? Cry and show my bleeding heart in public? To hide what I was going through I had to laugh my way through the crisis."

Today she's laughing....all the way to being the bahu in the country's most famous celebrity home.

How does Aishwarya Rai Bachchan sound?