Aishwarya Rai Gets Engaged

MUMBAI (AFP) - India's hottest cinema couple are engaged to be married, their representatives has said, setting the stage for Bollywood's most glamorous wedding bash in years.

Superstar Aishwarya Rai and heart-throb Abhishek Bachchan, son of screen legend Amitabh Bachchan, became engaged Sunday at his beachfront home in the exclusive Juhu district of Mumbai, Rai's secretary Hari Singh told AFP Monday.

"This news is true. They got engaged Sunday morning in Mumbai," Singh said.

Relatives said the marriage was being scheduled for February or March.

"The children have decided. We are very happy and thought we should go ahead with the engagement ceremony," Amitabh Bachchan told the Times of India.

Later he told news channel CNN-IBN that Abhishek proposed to Aishwarya after the premiere of their new film "Guru" in New York.

"I was the first person he called to break the news. I was overjoyed and gave them blessings and I asked them to come home soon," Amitabh Bachchan said.

The 30-year-old Bachchan put a ring on the finger of the former Miss World, 33, during a ceremony attended by family and close friends late Sunday, just hours after they arrived back from New York, Singh said.

Most of the Bachchan family attended the ceremony, along with Rai's relatives, industrialist Anil Ambani and his actor wife Tina.

Hundreds of fans thronged the house jostling for a glimpse of the celebrities. They were served soft drinks and bottled water by family retainers.

The engagement capped months of fevered speculation in the movie-mad nation about the relationship, which the golden couple had refused to comment on.

Rumours of impending nuptials had spread since the pair visited a temple in late November to pray and emerged with marigold garlands around their necks, usually a tell-tale sign of a traditional Hindu engagement.

Meanwhile, prayers were being offered on the banks of the sacred river Ganges at the holy city of Varanasi to clear up potential conflicts in their stars, media said. Hindus traditionally match horoscopes to ensure marital compatibility.

Rai reportedly suffers a poorly placed Mars, which could have a negative influence on her own and her husband's life. According to Indian astrologers, in the worst cases, those who wed a person with an inauspicious Mars will die early.

The couple and the Bachchan family have also made several rounds of temples and offered prayers to counter any negative forces from the planetary stars.

Bachchan was previously engaged to former leading Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor in a high-profile ceremony on his father's birthday, but they never married.

Rai has also been romantically linked to several Bollywood stars.

The couple have been dubbed "India's Brangelina" after Hollywood's A-list couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Rai is one of the top Bollywood actresses with several hit movies including "Bride and Prejudice", a Bollywood adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice.

Bachchan has starred in several successful films and was voted the sexiest Asian man by a British newspaper last year.

Both also earn large amounts from endorsing major brands.

The green-eyed Rai, who will be marrying at an age usually considered "over the hill" in India, where most women wed in their early 20s, and Abhishek, 31 next month, have starred together in several major films in the past 12 months.

The latest movie, "Guru", tells the story of an ambitious young villager who rises to become newly independent India's biggest homegrown industrialist.

The film, whose release in Toronto was touted as Bollywood's chance to break through to Western audiences, is reported to be loosely based on entrepreneurial legend Dhirubhai Ambani, who built India's biggest private company, Reliance. But the film-makers say the tale is fictional.