Was the revealingly clad Kim Kardashian the star guest at the Ambani wedding that has just ended in a blaze of sparkling festivities? Certainly, she got pride of place, making a dramatic entrance in a figure-hugging dress alongside Nita Ambani, the lady described by her new daughter-in-law as the CEO of the evening.

It definitely wasn’t an accidental entrance together by any stretch of imagination. Kardashian has 362 million Instagram followers and Nita will be in every picture with her that’s flashed around the world.

If anyone has any doubts about the Kardashians and their pulling power, consider President Barack Obama who once joked at the White House correspondents’ dinner that he had met Kendall Jenner, another Kardashian. “We had a chance to meet her backstage and she seems like a very nice young woman. I'm not exactly sure what she does but I am told that my Twitter mentions are about to go through the roof."

The excitement’s easing down slowly about the mega-splashy wedding described in the usually starchy French publication Le Monde as “one of the most lavish weddings in history.”

But a giant question mark still hangs over the mega-celebrations that stretched for over five months.Why were Mukesh Ambani and family determined to go on such a flashy spending spree that was certain to attract a blaze of attention both in India and around the world, and definitely not all of it approving?

Kim and Khloe Kardashian broke the internet when they attended Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant‘s wedding in India on the weekend. File picture.

The Wall Street Journal puts its accounting sleuths to work and reckoned that the entire five-months of extraordinary partying and cruising must have come with a price tag of around $600 million. That, though, is reckoned to be just 0.5 per cent of Mukesh Ambani’s net worth so it’s a sum that's piffling chicken-feed for the family.

Is it that the Ambani wealth has now risen to unimaginable levels and they are determined to display all the glittering jewels they’ve been accumulating over the last decades?

The Ambanis with their string of blowout nuptial bashes made the Crazy Rich Asians look like skinflints by comparison.

They also eclipsed many maharajas of yore -- like the one who famously splashed out and sent every last petal in the Dorchester Hotel flower shop to a woman with whom he had become infatuated. Before Independence, the maharajas were the most-sought after customers at gilded showrooms of jewellery merchants like Cartier and luxury automakers like Rolls-Royce.

Are the Ambanis and other Indian corporate czars now the new heirs to the maharajas? The Ambani wedding felt “like a new level of rich-people watching” with displays of luxury so extraordinary “they have become to seem like self-parody,” the Toronto Star remarked.

Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. PTI picture.

Certainly the world sat up and took notice – and when we say the world, we mean just about every corner of this planet.

“The crazy richest wedding ever,” declared NBC, the US TV news channel, adding a gushy string of adjectives like “opulent and ostentatious” and, “that’s just astronomical.”

“Emeralds almost the size of popsicles, ropes of the rarest natural pearls,” marvelled The New York Times which had its eyes firmly fixed on the fist-sized stones on display. The NYT did more than 10 stories on the long-drawn out celebrations over the last five months, covering everything from the jewellery to the Ambani stylists.

The wedding, said The NYT, "signaled the arrival of the unapologetic Indian billionaire on the global stage — and introduced the world to the country’s Gilded Age.” Even Jay Gatsby, the F. Scott Fizgerald protaganist synonymous with champagne fountains and never-ending parties, “would have been awed,” said the newspaper.

Other publications like The Times, London and The Washington Post also offered breathless coverage. The Australian Financial Review said the nuptials reflected “the rise and rise of crazy rich Indians.”

Only a few stopped to ask the purpose of the global-scale jamboree. Was it just a gigantic public relations exercise that resulted in Reliance publicity, raised India's global profile and was therefore well worth the money spent? Or was the Ambani family just showing off the scale of their wealth. And is such showing off vulgar when you only have to look down the road for a glimpse of Indian poverty?

Unquestionably, the Ambani wedding has been the greatest show on earth ever since the splendidly lavish pre-marriage ceremonies in March. The shower of publicity has turned billionaire Mukesh Ambani into a globally famous name.Yes, he is worth a staggering $122 billion and is the world’s 11th richest man according to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. But he wasn’t a familiar face worldwide like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.

The gigantic wedding and pre-wedding celebrations have altered all that beyond recognition. The New York Times, Le Monde and the business-focused Wall Street Journal, at one end of the scale, were reporting every high-wire move of the Ambani circus.

At another level, society publications like Vogue, Tatler and even the UK horsey set’s Town & Country magazine were breathlessly ooohing and aaahhhing about everything from the unbelievable jewellery on display to the dazzling larger-than-life wedding sets amidst which the pre-wedding and wedding celebrations took place.

Even in the midst of a brutal war, Israel’s Haaretz devoted space to the mega-wedding celebrations in Mumbai. In Asia, the South China Morning Post reported that, “Extravagant parties are the Ambanis’s speciality” drawing “celebrities, billionaires and world leaders.”

The Greatest Indian Wedding ever also made it to the pages of less well-known publications like the Vietnam Express which reported that: “Ambani heir celebrates $600 million wedding, eclipsing several royal families’ nuptials.”

Reliance Foundation Chairperson Nita Ambani speaks during the second day of her son Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding reception ‘Mangal Utsav’, organised for the Reliance employees and media, in Mumbai. Other members of the Ambani and Merchant families are also seen. PTI picture.

Le Monde couldn’t steer clear of the name-dropping game and reported how Justin Bieber would be singing “in front of Tony Blair, Boris Johnson, the Kardashians, Lana Del Rey, David Beckham, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the presidents of Aramco and Samsung and many others.”

But Le Monde added sternly that, “The pomp of CEOs has replaced that of kings, and in India today, the upper caste are those who are the friends of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

Inevitably, the global press corps divided much of its awestruck attention between people-watching and jewellery gazing. Almost running out of superlatives, Vogue magazine declared, “they pulled a collection of jewels from the family vault that bordered on the unfathomable.”

From mother of the groom Nita Ambani’s "100-carat yellow diamonds to Radhika’s emerald-laden looks, the gems on show were unlike anything seen before,” the bible of style enthused.

Vogue also turned its admiring gaze on Anant and his 720-carat emerald brooch with its “panther perched on a hulking stone.” Anant, said Vogue, “accessorized with more emeralds on his coat’s buttons, a swag of emeralds and pearls on his necklace, and a diamond aigrette brooch on his turban headpiece.”

Town & Country’s Editor Stellene Volandes, too, dived into detail about the precious stones being displayed by the Ambanis and particularly the emeralds that appeared on almost every outfit. “There was jewelry as far as the eye could see, but one stone clearly dominated,” she said, quoting one expert to explain that in India, historically, emeralds have been associated with royalty and divinity, believed to bring wisdom, prosperity, and protection.

Vogue clearly scooped all the other global media with a ringside seat at the actual wedding and a highly sought-after interview with Radhika, the ever-smiling bride, who revealed that Mukesh’s wife Nita Ambani was the moving force behind the mega-events. Said Radhika: “My mother-in-law was the C.E.O. of the wedding, as I like to say. It was Nita’s commitment and vision that brought our entire celebration to life.”

Then, there were the potshots at the Ambanis – plenty of them. About the Mediterranean cruise, UK society magazine Tatler had this to say: “And where do you host over 1,000 of your nearest and dearest? The £900 million cruise liner Celebrity Ascent, of course, which the couple rented out exclusively as they sailed between Palermo and Portofino.”

Tatler was indirectly hinting at a crucial question: how many of the celebrity guests did the Ambanis know at all?

There was one other unanswered question. Why did the Ambanis splurge in such a gigantic way on Anant's wedding celebrations when they had done much less for their other two children?

Inevitably, many writers commented on India's deep poverty which co-exists along with the Ambani display of wealth.

In The New York Times, author Sonia Faleiro commented, “the Ambani-Merchant matrimonial extravaganza shows us where true power in India now lies: with a handful of people whose untrammeled wealth and influence have elevated them to the position of India’s shadow leaders.”

Adding a further critical note, Washington Post’s Gerry Shih, one of the smartest foreign correspondents based in India, noted post-torrential rain had submerged many parts of Mumbai due to decrepit drainage and the Ambani wedding had brought life to a halt in other areas like the Bandra Kurla business district. Shih tartly observed that the amount spent on the wedding would eclipse the yearly education budget of several small Indian states.

While Shih said some Indians saw the wedding as “an awe-inspiring showcase for India’s growing affluence and its rising clout,” other Indians called it “an indictment of its lopsided development.” Time magazine called the opulence of the festivities “jarring” for some in a country with soaring income inequality.

Was it all a gargantuan publicity run-up for a digital Reliance Jio that might take place in the not-so-distant future? Or is Ambani planning to take his digital properties international. These were questions some Indians were asking. But while there were gripes about the colossal expenditure, for the most part the world press was agog at the hedonistic spectacle of rich Indians partying at the mother of all weddings.