Arun Nayyar

By Staff

India always loves to be a welcoming mother-in-law to foreign brides. Usha Narayanan, Sonia Gandhi... the list of proud daughter-in-laws is long and the latest entry in the list is that of British actress turned beachwear designer Elizabeth Hurley who married Indian businessman Arun Nayyar in the year 2007 at the 18th century Devigarh Palace near Udaipur.

When the wedding was solemnized with presence of celebrities like Elton John and his partner David Furnish, football star David Beckham and his wife Victoria, Pamela Anderson, and Hurley"s ex-lover Hugh Grant and his partner Jemima Goldsmith etc..., it became an occasion of a heavenly union of two loving souls, and of course one more romance blossomed with a jovial tune.

For some people, however fortunate they are in life, it may need some time to find the right person for them. This is true with both Nayyar and Liz. Both of them had to land up in wrong relationships which fitted no way, before holding hand each other and fusing minds into one. Nayyar was married to Italian model Valentina Pedroni from whom he separated in 2002. Liz also shares the same past as she was married to US billionaire Steve Bing which she describes as an 'ill-fated fling'.

But when souls made for each other meet, they have no choices left other than joining hands and thus began the love story of Arun Nayyar and Elizabeth Hurley. Nayyar fell in love with Liz at the very first meeting itself. Like most of the celebrity relationships, the couple's first meeting has been the subject of many a misleading headline. The couple met through a mutual friend, a London based financier called Alessandro Tome. "Arun is an old friend," he says. "I introduced him to Elizabeth in London. The fling became public in January 2003 when Hurley brought her new boyfriend to the Christian Dior show in Paris, and decided to hold hands and canoodle for the cameras. Hurley, 41, and Nayyar, 42, began dating the same year.

Hurley was quoted in Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper as saying: "When we do get married, I am sure India would become my second home." Today Hurley is India's daughter-in-law. Wedding was celebrated both in London and in India. Mr and Mrs Nayyar have one home in London and another in the Cotswolds, where they have a 400-acre farm at Barnsley.