Saturday night, the city's fast and furious headed to a pop-up nightclub located in the ballroom of a mid-city hotel, where, sources say, the party really picked up post midnight when a tribe of models in LBDs from the Fashion Week
Sushant Singh Rajput
Saturday night, the city's fast and furious headed to a pop-up nightclub located in the ballroom of a mid-city hotel, where, sources say, the party really picked up post midnight when a tribe of models in LBDs from the Fashion Week next door made their way in and let their hair down.
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Those spotted at the party included actors Dino Morea, Esha Gupta and business and society folk Yash and Avanti Birla among others. But all eyes were on a high-spirited Sushant Singh Rajput, who was seen dancing on his table till the wee hours, surrounded by a heavy security detail of beefy bodyguards, who kept all fans at bay.
The on-screen MSD is said to love a good party, and word has it that he joined a group of friends at the hotel's presidential suite to continue the festivities. This not the first time we have heard of the young actor becoming the star of the show, as he is said to have also let his hair down at a recent Bollywood house party. Twist and Shout!
Incandescent glamour
And so, in a fitting finale, Fashion Week wound down on Sunday evening with Manish Malhotra's dazzling 'Tales Of Indulgence', featuring a sparkling line of tuxedos and dinner jackets for men, and cocktail dresses for women.
Jacqueline Fernandes with Manish Malhotra (left) and Aditya Roy Kapur. Pic/Satej Shinde
What can one say of the Malhotra oeuvre? From the Gatsby-esque decadence of the roaring 1920s, to the sensuality of a Parisian burlesque to the hedonism from the depths of a nightclub in the Mediterranean, it was a paean to drop-dead glamour and gilded evenings.
Rohit Bal
And watching this sinewy stream of capes and corsets, and frills and feathers, on women with impossibly long legs, and men with exquisite bed-head hair, were the likes of Karan Johar, Sridevi and Khushi Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Sushant Singh Rajput, Neha Dhupia, Tiger Shroff, Disha Patani and Amrita Arora. And, at the end, in walked an incandescent Jacqueline Fernandes, looking like she ate bullets for breakfast, in an embroidered tulle dress, on the arms of the designer and Aditya Roy Kapur, amid the mandatory sprinkling of confetti and delighted applause, transpor-ting the hall into a state of magic and mystery.
But, on the way out, we were treated to a reality check, when we ran into the other great design maestro, Delhi's Rohit Bal, who, leaving his burgeoning responsibilities behind, in a show of support and respect to his colleagues and peers, had parked himself at the hotel for four full days to watch the shows.
"It has all been too, too much," he said at the end of it all. "Too much beauty, too much creativity, too many riches, too much glamour, and after four days, it all becomes a blur," he said, adding, "How much can the poor designer stretch himself to present newer, more dazzling ideas each season? How many top stars can he ensure as showstoppers? How many celebrities can he get to fill the first row? Does anyone realise what it takes out of us, to present these things?"
What was left unspoken, but understood, was the inbuilt stresses that come with the territory at Fashion Week: Making sure the stars showed up on time, that fragile egos were not offended by sundry seat placements, that the PR girls got the news and pics out for the next day's papers and sites... Come to think of it, 'Tales of Indulgence' was an apt name for the finale of what has become an almost impossible phenomenon to surpass or even sustain.
Fam-jamming with Ishitta
"It's been quite a fam jam," says model, VJ and actress Ishitta Arun, wife of musician Dhruv Ghanekar, about the recently concluded Oslo Mela, featuring music, dance, theatre, arts and crafts, and food, where her mother Ila Arun performed alongside Ghanekar to much applause.
Ila Arun and son-in-law Dhruv Ghanekar perform at the Oslo Mela
In a series of exultant social media posts, Arun shared the thrill of being at what is now Europe's biggest festival of its kind. "Oslo, here we come," she commented in one post on social media. "Mother as I know her," she wrote in another post, alongside a picture of her celebrated songstress-parent.
What's more, the Arun-Ghanekars were not the only Indian musicians invited; tabla maestro Zakir Hussain had performed on the opening night, and the line-up for the rest of the festival featured big acts, namely Timbuktu, Mory Kanté, Naseebo Lal and Mira Craig.The family that jams together....
The Nutty Professor
It is hard to explain today how, for a whole generation of Indians, actor, comedian, singer, film producer, film director, screenwriter, and humanitarian Jerry Lewis had mattered so much.
Kunal Vijaykar, Hemant Morparia and Jerry Lewis
After all, the rubber-faced king of slapstick, who died yesterday, was 91 when he breathed his last. 91! And yet, on hearing that the star of films The Nutty Professor and Who's Minding The Store had died, there was a collective sigh that had gone up amongst baby boomers. "My all-time favourite comic passes away," said comedian Kunal Vijaykar.
"I had the good fortune to see him perform live in New York, in a musical called Damn Yankees, around 1995. He played a fairly straight character for most of the play, whereas I had hoped to catch a pull of the legendary Lewis face, but he did not oblige throughout the performance. At the curtain call, when he came to take his bow, he seriously walked in with a dancer's cane, did a small gig and then contorted his face à la vintage Jerry Lewis. The audience stood in a thunderous applause," he commented.
"When we were kids, it was always a special treat to see a Jerry Lewis movie. We would laugh and then, for the next few days, I would drive my parents crazy by acting and talking like him," said erstwhile Mumbaikar, actor Keith Stevenson, who now lives in California. "I liked him in The King of Comedy with Robert De Niro, where he played himself," said cartoonist Hemant Morparia. "The French really loved him. I think Eiffel Tower will not be illuminated tonight."
Fingers crossed and all hands on deck
Since the news was released that India's leading hospitality chain is set to replace its current CEO after his short stint with the group, the move is expected to put an end to much uncertainty within the ranks. After all, with rumours of the ultimate choice doing the rounds, its top echelons never knew which way the wind would turn, making loyalty a treacherous thing. "I just hope it's a smooth transition and that no one is offended in the bargain," said an insider.
"The last time around, in a similar situation, things had got ugly, when a senior long-standing employee was asked to vacate his office abruptly and was forced to set up an interim office in the hotel's business centre," she said, adding, "Fingers crossed, this time around, we don't witness such turmoil." For the sake of India's most iconic hospitality group, we too hope that things settle swiftly and that it moves out of this transitory phase quickly, so that previous glory is restored.
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