COURTESY MIRROR AUG 19

Priyanka, Nick make it official
Couple’s roka ceremony was followed by an engagement party for Bollywood on Saturday
Avinash.Lohana@timesgroup.com
TWEETS @MumbaiMirror

Even though she has found her match in the West, the desi girl wanted to cement what we Indians call the ‘saat-janam-ka-rishta’ with family and rituals. So her American beau, singer-songwriter Nick Jonas, who had popped the question with a diamond ring a month ago on her 36th birthday, July 18, arrived in Mumbai with his parents, mother Denise and father Kevin Jonas Sr, late on Thursday night. They were driven straight to his fiancée, actress Priyanka Chopra’s Juhu residence where they would be staying over the next two days.

On Friday, after 10 pm, the Jonas trio joined PeeCee and her mother, Madhu Chopra, for a quiet dinner at a nearby five-star. Priyanka and Nick stayed close, with the 25-year-old “Jealous” hitmaker wrapping his hand around her waist. The couple had eyes only for each other as flashbulbs popped and their smiles said that the celebrations had begun.

Early on Saturday morning, exactly a month after the musician had proposed, Priyanka put on a yellow Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla salwar kameez, embellished with beads and embroidery, for a traditional roka ceremony that was followed by Ganesh Puja. Meanwhile, Nick opted for a long-sleeved ivory kurta-pyjama. The ceremony started at around 10 am and was officiated by pandits.

Only immediate family, which included PeeCee’s actress-cousin Parineeti Chopra, who had flown in from Lucknow for her Mimi didi’s big day, and a few close friends, like besties Srishti Behl and Mushtaq Sheikh, Arpita Khan and VJ Anusha Dandekar, were in attendance.

While the engagement party, slated to kick off at 9 pm, was behind schedule by over an hour, Priyanka’s best friend Sudeep Dutt was the first guest to arrive at the venue. Parineeti, dressed in a black outfit and strappy heels, was a close second.

Siddharth Roy Kapur, who is the producer of Priyanka’s upcoming Hindi film, The Sky Is Pink, with Ronnie Screwvala, turned up a little after 10 pm. Madhu Chopra, Mushtaq Sheikh, Anusha Dandekar, Arpita Khan and Aayush Sharma, and Mukesh and Nita Ambani, accompanied by daughter Isha, followed soon after.

Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj, who’d directed Priyanka in 7 Khoon Maaf, was also in attendance. Alia Bhatt, in a floor-length dress with a ruffle detail, also chose black for the occasion.

PeeCee and Nick had started dating a few months ago and cemented their relationship status by hanging out with the other Jonas brother, Joe, and his fiancé, English actress Sophie Turner who plays Sansa Stark on the hit US TV series, Game of Thrones, over the Fourth of July weekend in Florida.

In June, the couple had arrived in India together to introduce Nick to Priyanka’s producer-mom and her brother Siddharth.

They also took off to Goa with a few friends and PeeCee’s actresscousin, Parineeti, for a brief break. Before air-dashing back to Los Angeles, they turned up at Akash Ambani and Shloka Mehta’s preengagement bash on June 29.

The grapevine suggests that since Nick and Priyanka don’t want a long engagement, the DDay could be around his 26th birthday on September 16