A mirror panel being set up at the Prateeksha gate to ward off the evil eye. Picture by Pabitra Das

Mumbai, April 18: The curtain went up on Bollywood’s biggest wedding this evening. Well, only for a lucky few. The rest, the media included, could only make it till the gate of Prateeksha, as the Bachchan bungalow hosted the sangeet ceremony.

Here’s the paparazzi diary from 10th Road, Juhu Scheme, on Day One of the three-day AbAsh wedding.

9.13 am: Jalsa hosted a late-night party, so the action shifts to Prateeksha a touch late in the morning. The big surprise is the front façade of the bungalow. An elaborate gold motif has found pride of place atop the wide golden gate. Broad strips of mirror line the three sides of the gate. As a passerby points out, the mirror is meant to ward off buri nazar (evil eye). “When you look at the bungalow, you see yourself. So if you cast an evil eye, it will reflect back at you,” she says.

Now, Viveik Oberoi and Salman Khan will think twice before going past Prateeksha.

12.37 pm: Diagonally opposite, 24-year-old Bengali florist Biswajit is preening with pride. He’s been selling flowers in that busy Juhu corner for the last four years. But his hour of glory came in the last four days.

Biswajit was given a photograph of a bouquet, based on which he has been arranging eranthemums and orchids and sending them across the road. “I have been assured more orders…. I am waiting,” Biswajit smiles.

3.52 pm: Not everyone in Juhu is gung-ho about the wedding, though. An elderly Marathi lady storms out of the Nalanda Dance Research Centre on Guru Nanak Road, right across Prateeksha. All her chairs have been dragged outside by a special set of policemen doing duty for the AbAsh marriage.

“Go and ask Amitabh Bachchan to get all of you chairs to sit,” the woman thunders.

Armed with pistols and sticks, all the cops can do is return the chairs and offer the lady a smile. “Everyone should cooperate these three days and see this through. It doesn’t get bigger than this,” says a policeman.