Sachin’s wife Anjali with their son Arjun. File picture

Bhulabhai Desai Marg is home to some of Mumbai’s richest, such as Gautam Singhania of Raymond who is building a 30-storey mansion on this stretch of road in upscale Breach Candy.

So, the journey from the curio-studded bungalow No. 75 on this street to a cooperative housing society in a mosquito-infested Bandra East alley would have been an educational one for Sachin Tendulkar’s bride Anjali 18 years ago.

It would have been similar in many ways to the journey by her British mother Annabel when she married Anjali’s father Anand Mehta and came to live in India from Birmingham in 1966.

The cultural mix in which Anjali grew up helped her blend in with Sachin’s middle-class Maharashtrian family with its deep traditional values, say her friends.

Anjali is the only daughter of Anand, a successful Gujarati businessman and seven-time national bridge champion. His great-grandfather was a wealthy landowner, and Anand too owns considerable property in and around Breach Candy, one of Mumbai’s most expensive realty zones.

He had met Annabel at the London School of Economics where they both studied, he doing a business administration course and she pursuing a diploma in social work.

In Mumbai, Annabel had quickly melded into the large Gujarati household and taken up social work. She helped set up the Spastics Society of India.

One of Anjali’s aunts is married to a Lebanese businessman and some of her cousins are half-Gujarati, half-Mexican.

Ringside view

Anjali’s mother Annabel and father Anand Mehta at the Wankhede on Thursday. (PTI)

“Anjali’s family has an old connection with the Nehru-Gandhis. Her paternal grandmother, Amarganga, was the sister of Pupul Jayakar. Anjali too has known Rajiv and Sonia since she was a child,” a friend of Anjali said.

Pupul Jayakar was the official biographer of Indira Gandhi and a cultural adviser to both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. She shared a close relationship with the Nehru-Gandhis, thanks to her (and Amarganga’s) father’s friendship with both Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Jayakar’s daughter and Anjali’s aunt, Radhika Herzberger, runs the Rishi Valley School at Madanapalle.

“Sachin’s family background did not match Anjali’s, but they (the Mehtas) are people with old money and heritage — these differences are not important to them. They have always had great admiration for Sachin’s talent and his family’s literary links,” Anjali’s friend said.

Sachin’s father Ramesh Tendulkar was a well-known Marathi poet, columnist and professor of Marathi literature.

“There is a lot of mutual respect between the families. Anjali’s and Sachin’s mothers are great friends,” Anjali’s friend said.