Aditi Rao Hydari On Making Traditions Her Own

It’s an amazing, even inspiring thing to watch, when a wedding becomes a reflection of a couple’s shared thoughts and values. Aditi Rao Hydari’s wedding to Siddharth, her beau of three years, was exactly that — all heart, with a side of soul. They got married in September at a 400-year-old temple surrounded by 40 of their nearest and dearest. “We really got away with keeping it small,” she laughs, sitting feet up on the couch in her sister-in-law’s house in Notting Hill, London.

She’s fresh-faced, no make-up, not a zit in sight nor any sign of tiredness, even as she nurses a cold with tea and tissues in hand. “I love London, but I really hate this weather,” she says. The house is full, so we scamper upstairs to the study where no one disturbs us except the intermittent sound of Sula, the family dog’s barks punctuating our sentences. Everyone has descended in London to celebrate Siddharth’s parents’ anniversary and Rao Hydari is representing Team Adu and Siddhu.

“Siddharth couldn’t get away from a shoot, but I could, so I did,” she explains. This, I realise quickly, is how the couple likes to operate — as a team, batting for each other, filling in where the other can’t, stepping in when needed.

These roles as complementary teammates also came in handy when they were planning their wedding at a place of spiritual and familial significance in Wanaparthy, where Rao’s maternal grandfather, Raja J Rameshwar Rao, was the last ruling Raja under the Nizam of Hyderabad. “I was head of aesthetics and Siddharth is great at all the practical stuff,” she says, of the intimate wedding that had personal touches throughout. “We wanted every single person to flow with love and blessings… We planned everything ourselves, down to the flowers with Siddharth even deciding which person would sit in which car.”

Those images from their wedding are embedded in our collective consciousness for how disarmingly natural and relatable they were. She, in her gold half sari by Sabyasachi, hair loose with jasmine flowing down a cascading plait, alta decorating her hands and feet. Him in a veshti, charmingly at ease and incredibly pleased at the sight of his bride. Their pre-wedding couple shoot was shot in a home with books and paintings cocooning them, much like the study we are sitting in for our interview today. With Rao Hydari, there is no artifice, no persona playing away at you as you try to reach for her. Our interview is a chat. She is open, honest and her candour feels like a relief. All that is missing? A blanket and a warm fire. “I wanted to wear a half sari because it’s so unique to South India. It’s so unique to where I’m from, what I’ve grown up seeing around me. And quite honestly, every time I’ve worn it in a film, I’ve loved it — it’s made me feel rooted,” she says. The half sari isn’t the only thing Rao Hydari picked up from one of her roles in a film.

“I’m obsessed with the moon and the stars and the sun. When I was working on Heeramandi, the role that I was playing would regularly wear alta. At one point, I asked if we could draw a moon with the alta. After that, the moon became my thing. Every time I looked at it, I felt connected to it.”

In Tamilian weddings, brides wear two ornamental pieces on either side of the head, representing the sun and the moon. Also known as Surya and Chandra, the sun is considered the source of life, energy, and power, while the moon is associated with romance, emotion, and beauty. These jewels, Rao Hydari explains to me, symbolise the balance and harmony between these opposing forces.

Owing to her education in an alternate school founded by Indian philosopher Jiddu  Krishnamurthy, the actor grew up reciting shlokas three days a week. “So I understood some of the chants at the wedding,” she tells me. “Traditions and rituals need to feel meaningful to you as a couple. We chose the temple, not because it is a religious place of worship, but because any place of worship is built on energy lines.”

For both Rao Hydari and Siddharth, whom she describes as a ‘rationalist’, the ceremonies and rituals had to feel authentic to them. “I have a Mangalorean grandmother, Telugu grandfather. My father’s a Bori Muslim but he is an atheist, and a Krishnamurti man, and Sid’s family are Tamilians, so we decided to have a wedding that represented all of us,” she says. The kanyadaan, or the sacred ritual in Indian weddings where the bride’s parents symbolically ‘give away’ their daughter to the groom, at Rao Hydari and Sidharth’s wedding was done by four women — Siddharth’s mother and sister and Rao Hydari’s mother and her guru, Leela Samson. “It was Sid’s idea,” she smiles. As I write this, new images from a very under-the-wraps second wedding celebration by the couple in Jaipur, have just been released on Rao Hydari’s Instagram. 

In October, they hosted a wider wedding gathering of friends and family at a fort where the stepwell was decorated with diyas and flowers floated on water. “Siddhu’s gone mad,” she exclaims. “He wants to keep getting married!” The two also did a signing in Chennai after the temple wedding. As witnesses they called upon their ‘gurus’ — actor Kamal Haasan, director Mani Ratnam, Rao Hydari’s Bharatanatyam teacher Leela Samson and two other people very dear to Siddharth, along with their parents and family.

“These were people who literally watched us grow up,” she says. Both Siddharth and Rao Hydari have played significant roles in Mani Ratnam films, and consider him to be their mentor. In fact, perhaps the two of them meeting and falling in love was written in the sun, stars and moon. “I am a big believer in the power of intention,” says Rao Hydari. “When you really feel something, the universe finds a way of making it happen or you find a way of making it happen and the universe just helps you. I got into the movies saying I wanted to be a Mani Ratnam heroine, and it happened.”

So did she manifest Siddharth in her life? “Interestingly, I used to always say that Mani Ratnam sir’s heroes are just so incredible. They’re cool and they’re mad but they’re also really sensitive and there’s a kind of playfulness to them, you know? They don’t take themselves too seriously, but at the same time, they’re intelligent and they recognise the agency in their partners.” Siddharth is, for Rao Hydari, all of the above.

“I remember when we were doing the signing, the penny suddenly dropped and Siddharth said that we are just two Madras Talkies babies in a Mani Ratnam wedding,” she laughs, recalling the surreal moment. With that, she signs off her attraction and devotion to Siddharth as that of a ‘pixie soulmate’ — someone whose lighthearted, magical personality aligns deeply with your own, making you feel a sense of joy, inspiration, and belonging. “I think a happy and healthy marriage is about the everyday. It’s about laughing together. That to me feels real. I think for both of us that is really important — to laugh together. And we really do that,” she smiles.

Photographs by Tarun Vishwa; Stylist: Priyanka Kapadia; Hair & Make-Up: Deepa Varma; Creative Director: Yurreipem S Arthur