Shruti is a final-year college student who wants to start a wedding-planning business. Bittoo, also in the same college, wants to avoid becoming a farmer like the rest of his family. He begs Shruti to let him work with her, so he can put off going back home after graduation. Shruti agrees, on the condition that they keep their relationship strictly professional, never trying to get romantically involved. Together, they start a company called 'Shaadi Mubarak' (lit. Happy Wedding), which manages weddings for clients in Delhi. Soon, their business becomes a success with a steady stream of local, middle-class clients.
Bittoo wants to break into a higher market segment, so they pitch their company to a young couple, who are looking to have a typical, Indian-style "loud" wedding. Their parents, who are industrialists, are harder to convince, but they agree to hire Bittoo and Shruti for the event. The wedding becomes a huge success, and Bittoo and Shruti throw a party to celebrate. Guests drink into the late hours of the night. They slowly depart leaving Bittoo and Shruti alone with each other. Drunk from the night's events, they end up sleeping together, something that Bittoo immediately regrets. He is worried about the fallout this will have on their work-relationship, and is afraid Shruti might fall in love with him. He starts being awkward around Shruti, who brings up the topic. After discussing the encounter with each other, they agree to return to their original no-romance policy, and go about planning their next wedding.
The event goes off well in typical Shaadi Mubarak style, but Shruti is still irked over Bittoo having treated her as a one-night stand. She yells at him and asks to break up the business. The next day, Bittoo leaves Shaadi Mubarak and sets up his own rival company. The two go about growing their respective businesses, taking turns to sabotage the other. Slowly, their reputations suffer as clients start to complain. Their debts grow as disgruntled clients are unwilling to pay. Despite all of this, neither is willing to make peace with the other. A few months later, Shruti and Bittoo are both called to a joint meeting with a wealthy client, who wants his daughter's wedding planned by Shaadi Mubarak. He is not interested in their separate companies, but is willing to offer them the job if they work together. With business prospects drying up, they agree to do so for one event, and hire a team to plan the wedding.
Filming started in Delhi on 4 February 2010, the same day the production company announcement was made.[10] Singh was very nervous about his first day but was eventually proud that his first scene only took three takes to shoot.[11] An 18 February article by Minakshi Saini for the Hindustan Times' entertainment supplement HT City reported that during the previous day's early morning shoot in West Delhi's Subhash Nagar, Singh's newcomer status led many to speculate on whether he was Ranbir Kapoor, Ranvir Shorey or even Riteish Deshmukh. Police officers were eventually called in to secure the set from curious onlookers, however some expressed discontentment at having to be out in the cold despite both lead actors being virtual unknowns.[13] The film features a kiss between the lead actors, which only necessitated a single take.[11] Reportedly, Singh accidentally hit Sharma while filming an undisclosed intense scene.[14] Other than Subhash Nagar DDA Market, locations in Delhi include Janakpuri, Delhi University, North and West Delhi, Ring Road, Mehrauli Farms and Akbar Road.[6][15] Some scenes were also shot in director Maneesh Sharma's almamater, Hans Raj College in University campus.[16] The film was additionally shot in Mumbai in March and Rajasthan in April.[17]
Prior to the film's release, Anushka Sharma referred to it as her "best film till date".[33] Band Baaja Baaraat's trailer and official website were both unveiled on 19 October 2010,[34] a couple of months before the theatrical release. In addition to the film's synopsis and trailer, the website initially also contained five wallpapers and a press kit for visitors to download. The number of available wallpapers later grew to twenty-five and the website eventually allowed visitors to send e-cards to their acquaintances, with the virtual cards dubbed "Band Baaj-O-Grams". A number of contests were organized by Yash Raj Films, including one where the company, along with partners Radio Mirchi and BIG Cinemas, offered the winning couple a free wedding in December, in time for the film's release and supposedly planned the film's heroes, and another in which a couple would win a trip to Switzerland and visit the filming locations of the various Yash Raj Films productions to have been shot there. In addition to the website, Yash Raj Films also had regularly updated official pages on Facebook and Twitter and a Blogspot blog in an effort to reach the widest audience possible. The company finally uploaded a number of videos on their YouTube account, including the trailer but also several videos promoting the songs "Tarkeebein" and "Ainvayi Ainvayi".
Serengeti national park is under threat from Ortello Business Corporation (OBC) in a deal that could displace 48,000 indigenous Maasai and open it up for hunting of lions and leopards. An urgent action by Avaaz, an international campaigning group, has gathered close to a million signatures to protest the scheme.
The Serengeti region covers 12,000 square miles (30,000 square kilometers) from north Tanzania to south western Kenya. Over 2,000 lions roam the area among dozens of other species from the crowned eagles to elephants and rare black rhinos. It is most famous for an annual migration during which over a million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebras travel south from the northern hills to the southern plains in October and November and then move west and north between April and June.
The region is also called Maasailand, after the semi-nomadic indigenous community that lived there for centuries until the British colonialists started to grab their lands to build ranches. Today the colorfully dressed spear carrying tribe have become a global tourist attraction.
"(O)ur vision of virgin nature has encouraged the takeover of the land by a new breed of super-rich conservationists and tourism operators," writes New Scientist journalist Fred Pearce in his new book, The Land Grabbers. "The Serengeti has become the world's biggest zoo, in which the Maasai warriors are reduced to decorative walk-on parts."
One of these operators is OBC, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, and markets big game safaris. The company prefers not to speak to the media but a Conde Nast Traveler reporter sketched a profile of the company and its recent conflicts with the local Maasai.
In the early 1990s the Tanzanian government "granted OBC the right to hunt in more than 50,000 acres of savanna and hills in Masailand, reportedly in exchange for millions of dollars in financial aid to the Tanzanian armed forces," writes Joshua Hammer.
In July 2009, the Tanzanian army allegedly kicked dozens of Maasai out of the area for "trespassing" on OBC land. " They ordered us out of our bomas (thorn bush compounds), then they poured gasoline on them and set them on fire," a cattle herder told Hammer. "After the burning, we rebuilt, and they came and did it again."
A similar report was published by a Tanzanian fact-finding mission conducted in August 2009 by Feminist Activist Coalition (FEMACT) which reported that "there were ruthless eviction operations conducted in the Loliondo villages. Contrary to the District Commissioner's claims, the investigation team came across testimonies and evidence of despicable despicable acts. The team came across women who had undergone miscarriages, rape, loss of children and other properties including food and shelter. Men who were chained beaten and humiliated in front of their families, those who had lost thousands of livestock among other properties and those who were imprisoned for no apparent reasons."
In September 2009, James Anaya, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples wrote to the Tanzanian government to ask for an explanation of the incidents.
The UN letter notes that the original contract between OBC and the government, required to company to make payments of three million Tanzanian shillings to each villager and provide employment, roads, schools and water to the community. But OBC "has not complied with the contractual terms related to compensation, provision of services, and employment," writes Anaya.
A week ago Avaaz, a letter writing campaign group, heard from the Maasai that OBC had new plans to expand and asked for their help.
"The last time this same corporation pushed the Maasai off their land to make way for rich hunters, people were beaten by the police, their homes were burnt to a cinder and their livestock died of starvation," wrote Avaaz's Sam Baraat in an email sent out last week. "But when a press controversy followed, Tanzanian President Kikwete reversed course and returned the Maasai to their land. This time, there hasn't been a big press controversy yet, but we can change that and force Kikwete to stop the deal if we join our voices now."
"For us, our land is everything, but these Arab princes have no respect for the animals or our rights," Mzee Orosikos, a Maasai elder, told the Observer newspaper. "Many of us would rather die than be forced to move again."
The government denies the allegations. "(N)o eviction exercise has been planned for the Serengeti district, which is one of the districts in Mara region" George Matiko, spokesman for the resources and tourism ministry, told the newspaper. "In the Serengeti there is no hunting bloc allocated to Middle Eastern kings and princes to hunt lions and leopards."
The campaigners says that the government reply has been carefully worded to avoid the bigger question. "(T)he Tanzanian government is playing cynical word games - the Maasai lands in question are commonly understood to be within the Serengeti ecosystem'" says Emma Ruby-Sachs, campaign director at Avaaz. "If the government does not believe there is any threat to the Maasai lands, it should be easy for it to commit to a policy of not forcibly evicting any of its people to make way for foreign interests."