DADA WEDS THE DANCING QUEEN

Maharaj weds the Dancing Queen



This is the typical Hindi film love story of Sourav and Dona Ganguly.

We don’t know if it was the result of his schooling in St. Xavier’s or because of any special message he gleaned from the Bible, but Sourav took the Christian adage, ‘Love thy Neighbor’ a bit too seriously. He took this instruction to completely new heights when he fell in love with Dona, whose family lived next door to the Gangulys. In fact, the Ganguly and Roy households share a common boundary wall in their Behala neighborhood.

Dona was a student of Loreto Convent. Sourav always took a drive around Dona’s school, hoping to see her. Even if he didn’t see Dona, just the thought of her being around brought a huge smile to his face.

But like every great romance, theirs too was marked with difficulties. Sourav’s family was against intercaste marriages. Moreover, though their families were once business partners, somewhere down the line, problems in business had soured their relationship, giving rise to lasting bitterness. Thus, in true Romeo and Juliet style, an alliance of any sort between the two families was strictly unacceptable.

Sourav and Dona grew up together and managed to keep in touch through secret meetings even after the split. Even as the two families kept their distance, Dona watched Sourav play cricket and Sourav attended her dance recitals. Dona was in class XII when things became serious between them. But the couple had to do everything to keep it a secret not only because their parents were conservative, but also because their fathers, who were best of friends at one time, had suddenly become sworn enemies.

When the news of Sourav and Dona’s romance reached the Ganguly household, they made it very clear that they wouldn’t

approve of a non-Brahmin girl as their daughter-in-law. Sourav was undaunted by his family’s disapproval and continued with the romance. However, he kept is as secret as possible. Sourav always knew that Dona was the woman for him.

Those days, Sourav was busy carving a niche for himself in the world of cricket while Dona was pursuing dance. She is a student of legendary guru, Late Kelucharan Mahapatra and her dream was to become an Odissi dancer. Today, she is an accomplished Odissi dancer with numerous credits to her name and also runs her own dance school in Kolkata. Both Sourav and Dona were focused about their respective careers and wanted to get married only after becoming successful in their chosen areas of specialization.

Finally, the time came when they decided to go ahead with their plans of tying the knot. This was immediately after Sourav returned from his triumphant Test debut at Lord’s. The whole city was rejoicing along with the Ganguly household. Sourav thought this was the opportune moment and confided in Moloy Banerjee who is a highly respected cricketer from Bengal and told him about his plans. Banerjee, personally very close to Sourav, was initially apprehensive about going against his family. He later agreed and as he says, “I can’t say no to Maharaj.” When Dona was asked who proposed to whom and when, she immediately replied that its too private a matter to be disclosed. Sourav later disclosed why he went against his family to marry Dona. "I realised that I couldn't stay away from her any more and I didn't care what the elders felt".

On the appointed day, Sourav and Dona arrived at Banerjee’s home in a south Kolkata colony. From there, they drove to the registrar’s office and as luck would have it, Banerjee was the first to step in. There, he saw the place teeming with photographers and enthusiastic fans. He realized that somehow, the news of Sourav’s marriage was leaked out and if they weren’t careful, the next day’s papers would be splashed with the wedding photos. Banerjee decided that the best thing to do would be to smuggle the registrar along with the official documents and conduct the ceremony somewhere else, where the media would leave the celebrity couple in peace.

The registrar was made to collect all necessary papers and made part of the entourage, which now headed back to the Banerjee house. The wedding formalities were completed and thus, Sourav and Dona were formally married. The marriage took place in the living room of Moloy Banerjee’s home, on August 12, 1996. The fact that Sourav had eloped with his childhood sweetheart and neighbor caught both families unaware. When they married, Sourav was 23 and Dona, just 20 years of age.

It was essential that neither the families nor the press found out before Sourav left for Colombo, two days later. The idea was for Sourav to be out of the country when the news broke, so he and Dona won’t be hounded by the media. And so, the plan worked, even though the media got a wind of it before Sourav’s departure.

Shyam Sunder Gupta, the marriage registrar who got the young couple married commented that Dona looked extremely happy but Sourav seemed ‘terribly scared of what he had done and the effect it would have on his family, especially his father’.

When the news reached their families, all hell broke loose. After a while, their anger subsided and they went ahead and accepted the decision made by their headstrong son.

A lavish, formal wedding ceremony was conducted on February 21, 1997 and this time, no attempt was made to stop the photographs from reaching the front of the newspapers! This is the day when Sourav and Dona celebrate their wedding anniversary. For Dona, Sourav is still the next-door neighbor, her best friend, with whom she fell in love later. She says that she fell in love with the man, not the cricketer.

It has been 10 lovely years now since Sourav and Dona got married, and the melodramatic start to their life together seems aeons away. Both of them are pursuing their respective

careers with full ardency and devotion. Today, they are also very proud parents of a girl named Sana, (born November 3 2001). In fact, their entire world revolves around the seven-year old. Their marriage has been able to withstand all pressures, be it Sourav’s hectic schedule or rumors appearing in film magazines. Thus, the love story of the Maharaj and the Dancing Queen has had the perfect ending.

Sources: Sourav – A Fire Within, Sourav: A Biography, and Shaadi.com

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