Why I'm Glad Anushka Sharma And Virat Kohli Managed To Pull Off Their Secret Wedding (For The Most Part)

The cat's finally out of the bag. To be honest, this particular cat - the one about Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli's widely anticipated and hotly rumoured nuptials - has been almost wrestling to get out of the bag for a while now. Especially since the two were spotted at airports, with their families, and even an inconspicuous panditji in tow. Seriously, why a celebrity would fly with their family pandit, while furiously denying wedding rumours, is anyone's guess.

Pandit gaffe aside, I'm kind of, sort of, maybe, just a teeny, tiny bit glad that they managed to keep it a secret, for the most part. Even though it's also kind of, sort of my job to try and ensure they don't. Call it a conflict of interest, if there was ever one.

The thing is, weddings are difficult. And marriage is terrifying, no matter how head-over-heels in love the couple might be, going in. If you've ever been closely involved in the planning and execution of a wedding, you already know that. Ruffled feathers of family elders, last-minute wardrobe malfunctions, jitters, drama, emotions, they're all at peak hysteria mode. More often than not, the bride and groom end up looking and feeling like nothing more than exhausted exotic animals being paraded for display. And that's just a normal, run-of-the-mill wedding that no one other than the couple's own is interested in.

Now multiply the madness a thousand fold, with fans and my fraternity (yes, yes, we're guilty) dissecting every little detail - from the glow in her cheeks to the twinkle in his eye, from the Sabyasachi maang tika adorning hear head to the tip of the jutis under his embroidered sherwani, the placement of the flowers to what their body language says about their relationship - and you've got a celebrity wedding on hand. No matter how much training you've had in ignoring the cameras trained on you 24/7, there is no way it wouldn't be daunting to have to put on a show for the world on a day you're already (probably) feeling like a bundle of nerves.

I've always felt a pang of regret when celebrities desperately trying to have a private moment - maybe attempting to make sense of a broken heart, give a budding romance a chance to blossom without having to answer uncomfortable questions that don't yet have an answer - are unable to find one corner of the world without a camera recording their every moment. You really can almost always tell, when someone is truly just trying to catch a break and when they're putting on a show, hoping to be photographed.

Yes, it's the life they chose for themselves, and yes, they make indecent amounts of money to compensate for their pains; but money is of little solace when you find strangers unashamedly witnessing your most vulnerable moments, often in real time.

And being a Bollywood star or a much-loved cricketer in our country means a constant tug and wrestle with my industry, trying to manage their message and build their brand, even while keeping their most private affairs, private. No side ever clearly wins - it's an ongoing race with no clear end in sight.

But even as official photographs and unofficial videos from the wedding in Tuscany, Italy, flood social networking sites, and #Virushka disrupts the news cycle with the mad scramble to ferret out details about the upcoming reception, arrangements for it, and, of course, who will make it and who will be left off the coveted guest list, I'm glad that Anushka and Virat could carve out a few days away from their own brands and celebrity - individually, and as a couple.

In a world of Internet overshare and constant scrutiny, where all it takes is one gossip-happy relative, attention-hungry friend or disgruntled employee to blow the lid off of months' worth of hush-hush preparations and dogged secret-keeping, it is nothing short of a miracle that they managed to get married in relative peace and quiet.

And even as I scroll through their images and can't help some uncharitable thoughts about their choice of colours (boring!) and music (done to death!), I'm glad Anushka and Virat had their day without being bludgeoned to death by the opinions of me and my ilk.

Congratulations, Virat and Anushka, you just scored a century in the never-ending series against us, and I couldn't be happier for you.