Singer Shilpa Rao, known for popular songs like ‘Gungroo’ (‘War’), ‘Malang’ (‘Dhoom’), and ‘Bulleya’ (‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’) among others, got hitched to her boyfriend of three years, photographer Ritesh Krishnan, in a private ceremony at her residence on January 25, 2021.
Conversing exclusively to Bombay Times, Shilpa says, “Our parents are senior citizens and therefore we chose to do a simple registered wedding at home. We kept it simple, decorated the house with flowers and my brother’s wife did my mehendi. We formally registered the wedding at around 5pm, and all my friends and family members from across the world joined in on a video call to see the ceremony.”
Shilpa has always been private about her personal life, and not many knew about her relationship with Ritesh. Sharing details about how they met, she tells us, “We met three years ago on (music composer) Pritam’s USA tour. Ritesh seemed to be an affectionate person, and we started hanging out together. On the first day that I met him, I felt that he was a chilled-out guy, which was very attractive for me. We started travelling together in 2018, and did many shows across India.”
Ask her about how Ritesh proposed to her and she elaborates, “In October 2019, we were at a monastery at the top of the mountains in Ladakh. Ritesh said, ‘Let’s get married’ and I said, ‘Yeah’. That was really a beautiful place to have this conversation. So, it wasn’t slipping a ring on my finger kind of a proposal or going down on one knee, but it was just being one with the world.”
Talking about her hubby’s equation with her parents, Shilpa says, “They loved him instantly when they met him. Ritesh takes more care of my parents than I do. He has been a very supportive partner in the past three years. He sometimes pushes me to do so many things for my work and for my music, which I possibly couldn’t think of.”
Ritesh was a fan of Shilpa’s earthy voice long before he met her. She shares, “His friends told me that he was crazy about my song ‘Manmarziyan’ from ‘Lootera’. He used to play it at every party on repeat mode. That is sort of our song now.”